Unholy Blue (10 page)

Yawning until his jaw cracked, Cor held tight to the end of the leash attached to Sam's harness as the puppy sniffed around the front lawn. “Pee already,” he grumbled, shivering in spite of the jacket he'd thrown on over the old sweats and T-shirt he used in place of pajamas. He huddled deeper inside the jacket, the night air's nip as sharp as Sam's milk teeth. The front porch lamp threw a circle of yellow on the yard, mimicking the waning moon's light. Cor grumbled in frustration when the pup sniffed a patch of grass, decided it didn't have the right smell or the right absorbency, and then moved on to the next patch.

“Maybe if I pick him up again, it might help,” said his father, waiting next to him. To Cor's apprehension, his dad pulled his iron knife from its sheath.

Alarm kissed the back of his neck. He jerked his head around, searching the shadows for the monsters that lived there, no matter what Dad and Shay said.

As if reading his thoughts, his father spoke. “Simply a precaution, son. Better to have your weapon drawn and not needed than to need it and not have it ready.”

Cor nodded. Relief filled him when Sam finally squatted, staring straight ahead in concentration, determined to do his best. A moment later, he stepped aside, kicked a few blades of grass over his mess with his back paws, then bounded back to Cor, proud of his accomplishment.

“Good job, boy.” Reeling in the pup, Cor trotted to the front door, Bann playing rear guard. As his dad began locking up the house for the night, Cor unclipped the leash and draped it over the small table already crowded with several sets of keys, Shay's purse, and the day's mail. “C'mon, Sam. Time for bed.” He patted his leg, pleased when the dog followed him. Tossing his jacket over the wooden chair in the corner, he toed off his shoes, then lifted Sam onto the mattress and joined him. He was just crawling under the covers when Shay walked in.

“No way, kiddo.” She scooped up the pup, ignoring Cor's squawk of protest, and nuzzled Sam's neck with her chin. “Who's a good boy?” she murmured.

“Please, Shay? Can't he sleep with me this one time? I just got him.”

“Nope.”

“Please?” He tried again, this time using the wide-eyed, cute kid look that worked about sixty percent of the time with his father.

Apparently immune to cute kid-ness, she stepped over to the crate. “We talked about this earlier. He'll get used to the crate and think of it as his den.”

Cor watched mournfully as Shay opened the container, placed Sam in the middle of the thick bedding, and then closed the door with a clang. The
puppy whimpered and pawed at the bars. “What if he gets scared? Or lonely?”

“Just speak a few words to him, then ignore him. He'll settle down soon enough. In fact, he'll probably fall asleep right away because he's had such a big day.” She paused by the foot of his bed and refolded the extra blanket draped across the end.

His father appeared. Hope surged. When he opened his mouth, Bann shook his head. “Do not even attempt it, Cormac Boru. No means no, whether I say it or Shay says it.”

Cor kicked a leg under the covers in frustration. “Yes, sir.”

“Right. Now, do you wish for the nightlight?”

He glanced over at the curtain-covered window.
I have to be brave for Sam
. “No, I guess not.”

For a brief moment, Cor wished he was back in the camper, with his father only an arm's length away. He wondered if Dad ever knew how many times during the year they were on the road—each day blurring into the next as they drove from town to town, determined to stay hidden from the shapeshifter—he had awoken in the dark and reached out to touch some part of his dad. He remembered all the times he had jerked free of a nightmare, a scream choking him and his body slick from fear-sweat. It was always the same nightmare—finding his mother pinned to the large oak in their back yard by a set of antlers driven through her chest, head lolling sideways on her shoulder from a snapped neck.

Then, strong arms would pick him up, blanket and all, and hold him tight, rocking him while he sobbed away the night terror. More times than not, Cor would
end up tucked between the man and the wall of the camper in a bunk not big enough for one, let alone one and a half, the heat from his father's body balancing the chill of the aluminum sheeting.

Before he could change his mind, Bann leaned over and pressed his forehead against Cor's with a whispered
codladh sumh
, then clicked off the lamp and left, ushering Shay ahead of him. He left the door ajar.

With a sigh, Cor rolled over and looked at the crate. In the illumination from moonlight through the curtains, Sam was a pale blur, nosing around the crate and whining softly. The whine turned into yips.

“It's okay, Sam. Go to sleep.”

Sam barked louder, following up with long drawn-out whimpers. “Don't be scared, boy. Nothing can get you in here—Dad said so.”
He's scared. I know how that feels
.

With that thought, Cor climbed out of bed and squatted down in front of the crate. He poked his fingers through the mesh. A wet tongue licked them. Glancing over his shoulder at the door, he chewed on his lip, then scooted on his hands and knees to his bed, snagged his pillow as well as the folded blanket, then scurried back to the cage. He unlatched the door, hissing through his teeth when the latch
ting
ed. The sound seemed to echo around the room. He paused, waiting for footsteps. And a scolding.

After a long minute, he swung the door open. Holding Sam back with one hand, he stuffed the pillow and blanket inside, leaving the door open for his legs. Making a nest for himself, he lay down, smiling in the
dark as the pup flopped next to him, head and one paw resting on Cor's chest.

Stroking the soft body as puffs of breath, smelling of Puppy Chow, tickled his throat and chin, Cor gazed at Sam, who gazed back at him. A feeling so intense he wanted to jump up and run around his room and cry at the same time made his chest ache. “I love you, Sammy.” Sam nestled closer and sighed, as if to say,
I love you, too
.

Cor wondered how he could love someone he just met.
Did Dad feel this way when I was born
?

Muted voices drifted from the great room. Once he thought he caught his name, followed by a question from Shay. His father said something in return, laughter in his tone. Footsteps moved around the house, the sound of running water, the clink of glasses, then lights turned off. The steps grew louder.

Cor tensed, eyes pinned on his bedroom door. The footsteps paused.

“I don't hear anything.” Shay's voice was a whisper.

“They are both sound asleep, I'll warrant.”

The footsteps moved on. Cor let out his pent-up breath when their door closed.

“Which means
knock first
, unless it's an emergency,” Dad had said to Cor while they had driven around town in the new truck, talking about house rules—most of which Cor was already used to following, since they had been staying with Shay for almost a month. The closed door was a new one, however. “Otherwise, any time you need either of us, and our door is open, even a little, you may come in.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why can't I come in when the door's shut?”

“Because Shay and I need our private time together.”

“To talk?”

“And other things.”

“Like, to kiss and stuff?”

His father had shifted in his seat, clearing his throat before answering. “Well, yes.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you need the door shut just to kiss—”

“Oh, would you look at that—a bakery. Care for a treat, son?”

Happy to have discovered that asking about kissing would earn him additional donuts in the future, Cor shifted around to a more comfortable position and pulled the blanket up to his ears. “
Codladh sumh
, Sam.”

A
METALLIC
CLANG
, FOLLOWED
by a yelp, had Bann out of the bed and on his feet before he was completely awake. Eschewing his clothes, he grabbed the iron knife from where he had placed it last night, unsheathed, on the floor next to him.

Shay had glanced at it while they prepared for bed. “Good idea.” She had grabbed one of her own and had done the same thing.

Now, panting from the shock of being yanked out of sleep, he wrenched the door open, raced down the dim hallway to his son's room, and threw himself inside.

Cor's bed was empty.

Panic walloped him in the gut, making his exposed testicles draw up good and tight. His eyes flew to the window. The curtains were still drawn; the first hint of dawn backlit the cloth panels.

A gasp of pain jerked his head down and around.

The boy was sitting inside the crate, rubbing the top of his head while he tried to keep Sam from jumping on his lap. Bann noticed a blanket and pillow shoved to one side.

“What the hell are ye doing in that thing?” He walked over as his son scooted out, hampered by Sam,
who was doing his best to chew on Cor's hair. Bann scooped up the pup, wincing when claws scratched his bare torso.

“Sam was lonely. And Shay said he couldn't sleep in my bed.”

“So you decided to sleep inside the dog's kennel?”
My child is an idiot
.

Cor nodded, still rubbing the top of his head. “I had to pee and I forgot where I was. I hit my head on the top of the crate.”

“What's going on?” Shay appeared, belting her robe around her.

Even in the dim light, Bann could see Cor glancing at his father's naked body—more specifically, at his father's groin—then at Shay. He could almost hear the confusion roiling around inside of the boy's head.
He's seen me nude almost every day. And, on more than a few occasions, in front of his mother. But this is different
.

“Cor. Go on to the bathroom.” He stepped aside as Cor scurried from the room, then placed the pup back in the kennel and secured the door. He looked at Shay.

She shrugged. “It's only awkward if we act like it is.”

After dressing, Bann ushered Cor and Sam out the back door to allow the pup to relieve himself, father and son bundled up against the early morning chill. The cold turned them into dragons with white smoke coming from their mouths. Hands shoved in his jacket pockets, Bann studied the waning moon still visible over the western mountains; it seemed reluctant to give up its kingship of the sky. Nearby, Cor played with Sam. Boy and puppy scampered from one end of the fenced yard
to the other, engaged in some sort of tag with rules that changed depending on who was winning.

Bann noticed that the woodpile, stacked to one side of the back door, had spilled out of its cradle. Shaking his head, he walked over to it.
She should not store this so close to the house
. Picking up the logs, he started to restack them.

“Dad! Help!”

Bann whirled around. Cor was crouched by the fence, holding one of Sam's back legs. Meanwhile, Sam was doing his best to crawl through a puppy-sized gap between the bottom of the fence and the ground. Before the Knight could reach them, the pup squirted free of Cor's grasp and disappeared.

“Shite!” Still a few yards away, Bann broke into a sprint. Without thinking, he started chanting lines from the Song, the ancient words that gave the Tuatha Dé Danaan speed and strength and endurance. “‘I am a bull of seven battles, I am a hawk on the cliff.'” A surge of power rushed through him. He cleared the fence with a foot to spare, as if a giant hand had pitched him over the top of it.

Landing on the other side with a grunt, he shouted at Cor to stay put, then ran after the small yellow blur that had whisked behind the nearest boulder in a puppy game of hide-and-seek. Behind him, he could hear Cor yelling for Shay. He wondered what the chances were that the woman and boy would actually remain within the safety of the wards instead of following him.
In Cor's case, slim. In Shay's case, none
, he thought, pulling his weapon free.

“Sam?” He slowed to a jog, not wanting to scare the puppy into hiding from him. “Here, boyo.” He made a kissing sound as he entered the jumble of boulders, his feet sinking in the sandy soil and slowing him down. The memory of pursuing Max into that same maze of rock during a snowstorm a few weeks earlier mocked him. Worse, at the same time he had been chasing Max, the Fir Bolgs had been massing for an attack on Shay's home—with Shay and Cor inside.

Looking down, he spotted tiny paw prints. As he trailed after Sam, he wondered how something so small could move so bleedin' fast. He walked deeper into the maze, eyes locked on the ground. Rounding the next boulder, he stepped into a clearing. A soft whimper made him look up. He slammed to a halt.

Two men and a woman stood at the far end of the clearing, all armed with bronze hunting knives and wearing the torc. Nearby, a pile of wood was stacked next to an unlit campfire. One of the men, his brown hair shorn in a pseudo-military crew cut, held Sam captive in his arms, a hand clamped around the pup's muzzle. Something about the man seemed familiar to Bann.

“Remember me?” Crew Cut asked. Before Bann could answer, he continued. “I was at the party where you beat the crap out of my friend.”

Recalling the evening, Bann shifted his feet under him, fingers tightening on the haft of his knife. “Good times, eh?” His gaze flickered over to the others. “I take it Quinn Tully was a friend of yours as well?”

“He was,” the woman answered. “As well as a clan member.” Her dark blonde hair was pulled back in a braid so tight Bann wondered how she was able to blink.

“And we Tullys protect our own.” The other man spoke. A scar puckered one side of his upper lip, giving him a permanent lopsided sneer.

“This your dog?” Crew Cut asked. He hoisted the pup up to eye level. Sam hung limp, tail tucked between his legs, trying not to call attention to himself. “Cute. Looks just like a toy I had as a kid.” His eyes, Fey blue but cold, slid past Sam to Bann. “I used it as a football with a bunch of my friends until we kicked the stuffing out of it.”