The Wild Sight (18 page)

“I’ve changed my mind,” she declared. “Let’s go back to the cottage. Or the back seat of the car. Or any place where I can
have my way with you, except the cold muddy ground.”

“Later,” he admonished, his fingers finally closing over the wayward torch. Then more to himself than to her, he added, “If
you still want to.”

“Oh, I will,” she answered as they both stood.

Donovan wished he could believe her.

Wordlessly, he played the light over the ground, searching for the path that led to McRory and Sybil’s dig sites. After a
moment he located it and together, he and Rylie walked into the stygian darkness. His feet dragged, as if his body protested
his mind’s decision to come here. Within a few minutes of entering the dank labyrinth of the fens, the noise inside his skull
started up again, increasing in intensity with every meter he traversed He definitely couldn’t recall this happening to him
before.

The sound soon grew so loud that he couldn’t think, he had to focus hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other. When
they reached the fork in the path, he handed Rylie the torch and clutched his temples with both hands in an effort to blot
out enough of the harsh buzzing so that he could remember which direction to take to reach the ancient pier.

“Are you all right?”

Donovan could scarcely make out her words through the relentless cacophony. However, the brush of her fingertips across his
cheek seemed to ease a bit of the pounding. He put his hand over hers and flattened her cold but soothing fingers against
the side of his face. Drawing in a ragged breath, he stared at the division in the path again.

“That way,” he said with a tilt of his throbbing head. “Can you go first?”

Even in the dark, he could see the concern etching her delicate features. She nodded and shined the torch on the ground before
she stepped in front of him, catching his hand. Stumbling after her, he clung to her hand like a lifeline.

Long, agonizing minutes later they reached the excavation site. In the pool of torchlight, the pit looked like a newly dug
grave.

And he had to go into it.

Reluctantly, Donovan let go of Rylie’s hand and approached the edge. The ancient black timbers roared out their sirens’ song.

“Donovan, what are you doing?” she cried out, the light from the torch wavering. “You’re not going down there!”

“Have to, I’m afraid.” His mouth was so dry his voice came out little better than a croak.

Quickly, before he lost what little remained of his nerve, he scrambled over the lip and into the hole.

The effect was instantaneous. Colors and shapes exploded in front of his eyes. The noise inside his mind crescendoed and burst.
Robbed of breath, Donovan hovered on the brink of consciousness for a moment.

In the sudden black quietness, he heard Rylie give a strangled cry. He looked up and saw the tall form of the Druid coalesce
within the swirling mist at the edge of the pit.

Donovan opened his mouth to speak, but only managed a weak cough.

“Dony, my brother.” The robed figure reached out a long arm, and Donovan felt very real and rough fingers dig into his forearm
to help him clamber out.

The beam from the torch flickered and winked out.

“Hain,” Donovan managed to wheeze in greeting.

He followed the big man’s gaze and saw Rylie scrambling frantically after the fallen torch. Little mewling sounds of distress
issued from her.

“Can she see you, too?” he asked in surprise.

Hain nodded his shaggy head. “’Tis Samhain. And though she does not look it, a little of the High King’s blood flows in your
wee golden lass as well. She can see me, mayhap not so well as you, Dony. Nor do I think she can understand what I say.”

“Rylie,” Donovan called out softly.

She’d found the torch and clutched it in both hands. Visibly shaken, she turned on her knees and faced them. “’Tis all right,”
Donovan soothed. “He’s a friend.”

But she didn’t answer; only whimpered. In fact, though she struggled to stand, her legs collapsed under her and she sat back
on the muddy ground.

Donovan took a couple of steps toward her, but Hain’s deep voice stopped him.

“I had best go no closer to her,” the Druid said. “But I know why you’ve come again, Dony. The dead man, he who dug these
holes, you seek him.”

Though it wasn’t a question, Donovan nodded. “McRory.” His throat constricted at the confirmation of what he already knew.
“He really is dead then?”

“You have seen that he is, my brother,” Hain replied, steepling his fingers in front of his face. “As you guessed, the nine-fingered
one killed him and brought his body here, to the fens.”

Lynch!
Donovan’s mind spun.
Lynch had murdered
McRory. But why?

The Druid continued speaking, “He went to the other place, where your mother buried the tall man long ago. He moved the mound
of earth and buried the dead man next to the hole, then covered him back with the same mound.”

“D-Donovan?” Rylie’s whisper quavered behind him.

He jerked his head in the direction of her voice and saw, to his astonishment that she stood within an arm’s length of him.
Even in the dark, he could see that her eyes were wide with fright and that she was trembling. Yet she’d managed to push herself
this close.

“’Tis all right,” Donovan reassured her, nearly overcome by a wave of admiration and pride at her courage. He extended his
hand in her direction and she grabbed his fingers in an icy death-grip.

Behind him, he could hear Hain’s deep voice warn, “Take care, my brother. This man means to harm you also. Both of you.”

Donovan pulled Rylie close, tucking her head under his chin.

“I’m s-sorry I’m such a b-big baby,” Rylie choked out against his chest.

He murmured a comforting sound in the back of his throat, then swiveled his head in Hain’s direction.

But the Druid had disappeared into the mist. The same intense noise that had accosted him earlier blared inside his head,
but rapidly diminished to a low whir. Nonetheless, the momentary blast staggered him. Rylie’s arms encircled his waist, steadying
him. She peeked nervously over her shoulder at the dark, swirling fog.

“What . . . Where . . . ” She turned her startled face up to him. “Did I scare him off?”

Donovan smiled a bit in spite of the pain stabbing behind his eyes. “I think he was more worried about scaring you. I didn’t
expect you’d be able to see him. Did you hear him too?”

She buried her face against his jacket for a moment before she spoke again. “Not really. I could hear a low sound but no words.
And he did look pretty darn scary. Kinda like a big hulking shadow, only in reverse. Light instead of dark, but more substantial
than a ghost, or how I’d picture a ghost.” She stopped abruptly and took a step back though her arms remained loosely clasped
around him. “
You
looked more like the ghost. Almost like you weren’t quite there.” She drew herself close to him again. “Are you okay? What
did he say?”

“What I already guessed, Lynch murdered McRory.” To his surprise, Donovan found he was panting as if he’d just run a thousand-meter
foot race. Or maybe a five thousand meter, for his limbs and body felt engulfed with fatigue. And his head ached like it had
split down the middle. He let go of Rylie and rubbed his temples.

Rylie drew away a little and asked, “Did he know why?”

Donovan grimaced. “No, but he told me Lynch buried McRory right next to the pit where they discovered Malachy Flynn.”

“Smart. Who would think to look there?”

“We would,” Donovan replied. Then at her glance of protest, he explained. “I’m hoping if I find McRory, then I’ll be able
to see why Lynch killed him.” “In a vision, you mean?”

When he gave a slight nod, she chewed her bottom lip for a moment before she said, half-heartedly, “But we don’t have anything
to dig with.”

“There’s a lean-to on the side of the cottage, I’ll check for anything we can use.”

Rylie gave a small sigh or relief. “Good! After that close encounter with your friendly Druid, I really need to use the bathroom.”

“That’s settled then,” Donovan affirmed. “And when we get to the cottage, we’ll call Heaney’s service.”

“Good idea.” She pulled the plastic torch from her pocket, switched it on, and they began their slow exit from the fens. The
mists had thickened, and if they tried to shine the torch beam anywhere but directly on the ground, it reflected back like
a distorted mirror. With the limited illumination, roots and branches tripped and snagged at them, hampering their progress
further.

The buzzing in Donovan’s ears continued, though not as loudly as before. Either that, or his head already hurt so much that
it seemed inconsequential in contrast. He yearned to sit down and take a long cool drink of water, but he didn’t want to prolong
this misery one moment more than necessary. Besides, the nearest water was at the cottage anyway.

The fog had grown so dense, that he didn’t even realize they were out of the fens until the torchlight shone on the mound
of earth from one of the storage pit excavations directly in front of them. Squinting, he could faintly make out the darker
shape of the building across the yard.

“Thank goodness!” Rylie accompanied her exclamation with a little jig. “We’re almost there!”

He sympathized with her plight. “Why don’t you go ahead? Can you see well enough without the torch?” He dug in his pocket
for his keys. “The door shouldn’t be locked but just in case, the smallest of these opens it. Oh, and take the car key too.
I dropped the mobile between the seats. Heaney’s office number is on the directory.”

With hands still icy cold, she exchanged the torch for the keys, thrusting them into her pocket. “What should I tell Heaney?”

Donovan shrugged. “’Twill be his service, so just say ’tis urgent that he call us back right away. Maybe by then, my headache
will have eased up enough to sort out what to tell him.”

“Poor baby,” she murmured. Then standing on tiptoe, she brushed her lips across his cheek. “I’ll check my purse for aspirin.”

Before he could answer, or kiss her back, she was gone. He could make out the red splash of her sweatshirt bobbing along through
the mist for several moments, then the swirling gray curtain swallowed it. Fingering his cheek, he trudged on across the yard,
wondering how the hell he could explain to the lawyer—or anyone else for that matter—what he knew about McRory without having
been directly involved.

Perhaps he really should be locked up, and studied for the freak of nature he truly was. He’d known the minute he touched
foot back on Irish soil that his life would be torn apart, but he’d never imagined how badly, how irreparably.

No going back now.
Donovan pushed aside his gloomy thoughts and concentrated on the task at hand, finding something to exhume a corpse.
Fecking lovely.

He reached the lean-to attached to the back corner of the cottage. As expected, no padlock dangled from the rusty bolt fastening
on the door. With fingers half-numb from the cold, he struggled to move the ancient metal, which finally gave with a groan.

He shined the light all around the tight enclosure. Other than mouse droppings and cobwebs, the contents were sparse. A moldy
broom with a splintered handle leaned in one corner and a rusty paint bucket sat in the other. A yellow-tipped screwdriver,
a wooden clothespin,and a handful of eight-penny nails lay scattered on the earthen floor between them. Nothing else. Not
so much as a rag.

Think!
Donovan commanded himself. Maybe he could use the lid of the paint bucket? Or maybe there was something inside the cottage?
He cocked his head to listen, but heard nothing from inside. Leaving the lean-to door open, he walked toward the front.

“Rylie?” he called out, shining the slender torch beam in the direction of the car.

A sudden glare of light split the darkness at the cottage door, followed by a muffled cry, “No!”

“Rylie!” he shouted, throwing his arm up to ward off the piercing brightness that stabbed his eyes.

But before he could move or speak again, the blinding light quavered wildly and something heavy clattered on the stone floor.

“Stop, O’Shea!” A man’s gruff voice ordered.

He turned and saw Lynch standing in the cottage doorway. One of his hands gripped Rylie’s upper arm. The other held a gun,
its barrel resting under her jaw.

Chapter 15

THE PLASTIC TORCH DROPPED FROM DONOVAN’S NERVELESS fingers, the light spinning drunkenly on the ground at his feet.

“Hands where I can see them!” Lynch barked, as he’d undoubtedly done hundreds of times.

Somehow, through the paralysis of terror that gripped him, Donovan managed to raise his arms to chest level, palms out, fingers
spread. The beams from the two dropped torches illuminated the ground around the doorstep and cast eerie shadows around Rylie
and Lynch’s feet and legs.

“So here you are again, O’Shea,” the beefy inspector mused with feigned casualness. “You and your little Yank looking for
someone? Or maybe some
thing?

” Donovan swallowed down the bitter taste of bile before he could speak. “L—Let her go.” Anger battled with his fear, curling
his fingers against his palms, making his voice stronger. “She knows nothing.”

“And what of you, boyo?” Lynch’s tone dropped to a sneer. “How is it you always seem to know too bleedin’ much? Who helped
you and your professor friend hatch this blackmail scheme? Not your old man, the feckin’ gobshite never knew squat about the
Provos’ network.”

“You’d never believe me if I told you,” Donovan replied, his mind now unparalyzed and whirling out of control.

Somehow he had to divert Lynch’s attention. Make him lower the gun. He squinted into the darkness, trying to see Rylie’s face.
Any other woman would have been sobbing hysterically. Trembling. Begging. But not Rylie. He couldn’t see her face, but could
discern the rise and fall of her chest under the red sweatshirt. A little rapid, but not erratic. Not panicky. She, too, awaited
her chance.

“Doesn’t matter,” Lynch spat, wrenching Rylie’s arm. “I’ve waited too long, searched too long for those account numbers. Nobody’s
going to take what’s mine after all these years.”

“You can’t honestly think you’ll get away with three murders,” Donovan challenged, though he had no doubt that Lynch was capable
of the deeds. His vision of McRory was more than enough proof.

The other man gave an ugly laugh. “Not murder. I’m afraid the two of you will have a tragically fatal lovers’ quarrel. Certainly
not unheard of. I shall arrive too late to prevent it, though one of you will live long enough to tell me the whole sordid
tale.” He shifted his stance slightly and Rylie squirmed in his grasp. “So which of you survives the longest, O’Shea? You?
Or her?”

The gun swung a fraction as Lynch tried to adjust his hold on her. The slight movement was all the opportunity Rylie needed.
As the gun barrel brushed beneath her chin, she twisted toward her captor. In the torch beams, Donovan saw her foot lash out
and connect squarely with Lynch’s knee.

“Bastard!” she shouted, ramming her shoulder into his throat as Lynch crumpled with a groan.

The gun clattered onto the threshold. In the same instant, Rylie sprang away, dodged around the car, and leapt toward Donovan.

“He has the car key!” she gasped, swiveling around him. “Run!”

Donovan moved on pure instinct, turning to dash across the yard for the dark safety of the fens. He reached for Rylie’s arm
and realized that she had them pinioned behind her back. Lynch had handcuffed her.

“Son of a bitch!” he swore. But his words were lost in the sharp report of the pistol.

Rylie squeaked in fright and stumbled. He gripped her elbow and kept her upright, kept her moving.

Halfway across the yard, Lynch fired again and Donovan zagged to the left, jerking Rylie with him. Another shot rang out and
Donovan heard the bullet thud into the mound of earth as they darted by. The rumbling tread of Lynch’s footsteps sounded behind
them.

Rylie stumbled again, her movements awkward and unbalanced with her hands lashed behind her back. He threw his arm around
her shoulders to steady her.

“Almost there,” he encouraged as the blackness of the fens loomed in front of them like an unearthly apparition.

Another shot whizzed close by in the swirling mist. It had to be Rylie’s red sweatshirt he was aiming for. The realization
slashed cold terror through Donovan’s fevered brain. With her hands cuffed, they couldn’t get it off of her, even if they
dared pause long enough to try. He tugged Rylie with him as he lunged to the left and then the right in a desperate attempt
to confuse their enemy.

Lynch shot again.

And again.

The vines and brush were no more than a dozen meters away. Beside him, Rylie suddenly jerked from his grasp and went down
on one knee. A cry of pain erupted from her lips.

Donovan grabbed her upper arm to pull her up and a warm, sticky fluid gushed over his hand. Blood! She’d been hit!

The terrible image of his mother’s body being flung forward as the bullet slammed into her back flashed through his mind.

“Rylie?”

Breathing hard, she stared open-mouthed at the blood dripping from his fingertips. She made a little strangled sound and her
terror-filled eyes flicked up to his for an instant. Then they rolled backward into her head, and she went limp.

Rylie!

No sound emerged from his mouth.

Everything stopped, frozen in that moment of horror.

Then another bullet zinged through the bush next to her crumpled form, and spurred Donovan into action. Sucking in a ragged
breath, he pulled her into his arms and made a mad dash toward the tangles of undergrowth.

Into the dank sanctuary of the fens.

He couldn’t stay on the path! That was his last coherent thought as the cacophony of noise that had assaulted him earlier
hit him again. He couldn’t hear, could scarcely see as he crashed through the branches and brambles.

One of his feet sank into muck up to his ankle and Donovan lurched and nearly dropped his precious burden. He wasn’t even
sure if she was alive . . .

Oh God! She couldn’t be dead! She couldn’t!

He held her tighter and lumbered on, gasping to breathe in the moist, heavy air.

The sounds inside his head pounded like a battlefield. War trumpets blared. Drums beat in savage rhythm. Dark colors swirled
in front of his eyes.

He couldn’t let himself lose consciousness! He wouldn’t!

Donovan could sense movement and the presence of other beings around him.

“Dony!” He recognized the gruff voice and turned to see the huge warrior materialize out of the mist.

“This way, my brother,” Ro urged, motioning with the sword clutched in his right hand.

Donovan followed him, the sounds of battle all around them—drums, horns, shouts. He couldn’t tell if Lynch still pursued them
or not. He only knew he must keep up with Ro, as he stumbled through the wavering half-twilight that now surrounded them.
Nothing else mattered, except the oozing of Rylie’s blood, warm and moist as it soaked through his shirt.

Just when his legs were about to collapse, they burst into a small clearing no more than a dozen meters wide. In the center,
stones were stacked knee high in a circle around a dark opening, a well. Thick green moss carpeted the ground on the north
side of it.

Ro motioned to the mossy area. “Put her there.”

He sheathed his sword and propped his round, iron-studded shield against the rocks; a sure signal that for the moment at least,
they were safe. Then he dropped a small wooden bucket tied to a crossbeam into the well.

Gingerly, Donovan knelt and let go of Rylie’s legs. Relief such as he’d never known flooded him when he saw her chest rapidly
rising and falling. Thank all the stars in heaven, she was still alive!

Holding her against him with his left hand, he struggled to get his jacket off so that he could put it on the ground under
her.

She stirred and groaned. “Ow! Hurts . . . ”

Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open.

Joy nearly overcame him, along with the overpowering urge to kiss her. Instead, he saw the wound was still bleeding and terror
seized him anew.

Had the bullet nicked an artery?

Would she bleed to death before he could get help?

God knew that if she didn’t survive, he didn’t want to either. The bullet should have hit him, not her!

Rylie moaned again and though he scarcely remembered how, Donovan lifted his eyes heavenward to pray. The limbs of a hawthorn
tree, adorned with bits of cloth and shiny trinkets left as offerings, spread over their heads.

“This is a holy place,” Ro affirmed, squatting next to him with a bucketful of water. “’Tis said the well has healing powers,
so we must clean her wound.”

Donovan tossed his jacket on the ground. Then Ro helped him ease Rylie onto it. She whimpered again, but still didn’t open
her eyes. He yanked off his bloodstained pullover and T-shirt, handing the latter to his friend. “Use this.”

While the big shaggy-haired man easily ripped the cotton knit to pieces, Donovan searched his pockets for anything useful.
Nothing.

Shrugging the pullover back on he asked, “Is there anything we can use to get these cuffs off?”

Ro offered the dagger from his sword belt, but though the blade was razor sharp, it was too wide. Donovan handed the weapon
back, and his friend immediately used it to slice through the bloody sleeves of Rylie’s sweatshirt and sweater. Donovan had
to turn away for a moment. The amount of her blood seemed too massive to be anything but serious.

Glancing toward the festooned tree, a flash of metal caught his eye. From a thorn on the lowest branch hung a string of carved
polished beads with a silver crucifix dangling from the end. His mother’s rosary. He’d know it anywhere. How had it come to
be here?

Feeling as if another presence guided him, he stood and slipped the rosary from the branch. Holding his breath, he knelt beside
Rylie, and carefully inserted the end of the silver cross into the slot between the handcuffs. With a small twist, one cuff
sprang open as if by magic.

With her hands no longer bound, Rylie rolled her uninjured arm in front of her with a long sigh. Her eyelids drifted up just
enough so that she met Donovan’s gaze. The corners of her pale lips curled just a fraction and his heart threatened to pound
right through his chest wall. Then, her eyes flicked across to Ro, hovering close on her other side, dagger in hand and she
gasped in fright. Her fingers frantically searched for Donovan.

“Is—is he—fr—fr—” she struggled to speak.

Torn between elation and anxiety Donovan covered her hand with his, the rosary falling around his wrist. “Friendly? Yes, he
is.”

Her grip was icy but gratifyingly strong. “But he . . . ” She licked her lips and panted with the effort. “He’s naked.”

Donovan couldn’t help but smile.
Of course that
would be the first thing she noticed.
“You can see him that clearly, then?”

“Umm hmmm.” Rylie murmured, then jerked her injured arm with a hiss of pain.

The warm metallic scent of her blood tinged the air. Ro had taken advantage of her distraction to continue treating her wound.

Still wishing he were the one bleeding instead of her, Donovan smoothed her hair with his free hand and made a shushing sound
of comfort.

All he could do.

Then he glanced over to where Ro swabbed away at the dark blood, his shaggy head bent close to Rylie’s shoulder. The bullet
appeared to have gone completely through the flesh of her upper arm. Donovan couldn’t let her see his concern.

“Ro’s a Celtic warrior,” he explained, to keep her attention diverted. “They went into battle with their sword, shield, and
not much else.”

She started to reply, but instead she stiffened and sucked her breath in sharply. Donovan’s frantic gaze jumped to Ro. The
big man had wrapped thick strips of cloth around her arm and pulled them taut.

“You must hold it tight to staunch the blood,” Ro said, motioning with his bearded chin for Donovan to take his place.

“Lynch shot me, didn’t he?” Rylie asked in a quavering voice.

Donovan didn’t want to let go of her hand, but he had to. He couldn’t bring himself to answer her question as he scooted awkwardly
around to her other side. To give voice to the horror would make it too real, perhaps unbearable. His eyes probed Ro’s face
for answers while his hand closed over Rylie’s bandaged arm.

“I am no healer,” the big man said, rising to his feet. “I shall send for Hain.”

“Where’s Lynch now?” Rylie persisted, her breathing shallow and uneven. She didn’t appear able to hear Ro. Or if she did,
she must not understand his words.

Again, Donovan looked at the warrior, who had hefted his shield into his hand. A dark smear of Rylie’s blood mingled with
the green and yellow paint on his sword arm.

“I don’t know,” Donovan whispered.

“Don’t worry, Dony,” the tall warrior said. “Spirit or flesh, I’ll allow none to disturb you and your wee lass here.”

In one fluid motion, he drew his long sword. Then with a final glance at them, he strode from the clearing.

Rylie gave a weak cough. “He’s . . . even more scary than . . . the other one.” She coughed again and looked down at Donovan’s
hand, wrapped firmly around her arm.

Thank heaven she couldn’t see the blood he felt oozing through the cloth under his fingers. Or the wet ruddy stains darkening
the green moss.

“They’re brothers,” Donovan explained, hoping to keep both their minds on something other than her seeping bullet wound and
the madman who’d inflicted it. “At least I think they are. The three of us were playmates when I was a child.”

“Sc—scary,” Rylie murmured.

“Well, we were all a lot smaller then,” he conceded.

“Umm hmmm.” Her chin drooped as if she was tired, but then a shudder wracked her slim frame. “C—cold. S-so c-cold,” she chattered.
“H-hold me?”

He pulled her against him with his free hand. She winced and moaned a little with pain, but grasped his jacket off the ground
as she snuggled onto his lap. Donovan inched his way backward a slow and careful millimeter at a time until his back rested
against the stones stacked around the well. His hand still gripped her arm. Fear nearly suffocated him.