BlackWind (19 page)

Looking up at the bird-like woman hovering before her desk, the Mother Superior had an unkind thought about Mauveen Hotchkin. The image of a buzzard, its long neck stretched forward to sniff a fresh road kill, flitted unbidden through the Mother Superior's mind. That Mauveen bore a striking resemblance to a vulture still did not make the uncharitable thought any less sinful in the Mother Superior's eyes.

She reached for her rosary and spoke sharper than was her usual wont. “Pray do not concern yourself on that account. Let me worry about what will become of Bronwyn's illegitimate child.”

“We can't allow her to keep it here!”

The Mother Superior narrowed her eyes. “Did I ask you to see to the matter of the transatlantic phone call, Sister?”

Sister Mauveen took a step back, obviously realizing she had angered the woman behind the desk. She bowed. “Aye, Reverend Mother, you did.”

“Then see to it!”

The stick-thin nun backed out of the room, bowing and scraping as though to a potentate. Her quick, nervous smile was no doubt meant as an apology, but the Mother Superior saw it in an entirely different light.

“Meddling old hag,” the abbess of Galrath snorted with uncharacteristic spite. She turned her chair around and stared out the window at the light snow falling on the grounds of the convent. Sighing, she laid her head on the back of the rich leather upholstered chair and closed her eyes.

She knew things would be difficult in the coming months.

Difficult and painful for Bronwyn McGregor and the bastard child growing in her belly.

The Nightwind sat by the campfire and stirred the blazing logs. Beyond the roaring fire, the night was black as onyx with nothing save the leaping flames to cast off the gathered gloom. Rain clouds hid the moon and, in the distance, spirals of lightning hurled themselves against the mountains. Banks of thick fog crept closer, the dampness settling on his flesh like unseen insects.

“Come, sit a while,” he said quietly, not bothering to look up at the one who lurked just beyond the feeble circle of light.

The visitor came closer, but stayed hidden in the shadows.

“I am lonely, too,” the Nightwind admitted.

Shuffling nearer to the outer rim of campfire light, the visitor looked about, searching perhaps for a trap.

“It's just you and me, friend,” he said and looked over his shoulders. His eyes locked with the visitor's and he smiled gently.

The visitor ambled to a log that lay beyond the flare of light and hunched down.

“Going to rain,” the Nightwind commented.

“Aye,” came the gruff reply.

“It's the rain I miss most when I am Beyond.”

“Beyond?”

“My lair is not unlike yours. It, too, is underground. But it is not on this world. It is—”

“Beyond,” the visitor growled.

“Aye. Beyond.”

For a long time, the two sat in comfortable silence, listening to the distant thunder reverberating from the mountains to the west. At last, the builder of the campfire cleared his throat and spoke.

“I have a favor to ask.” He stood and walked to where his visitor sat on the log.

“Do not come so close!” was the shocked command.

“I am not afraid of you, friend.”

“You have not seen me!”

“Nor you, me.” He stopped a few feet from his visitor and shook himself like a dog fresh from a pond. When the shaking stopped, he knew he bore a strong resemblance to the astounded being sitting on the log outside the reach of the fire.

“What are you?” the visitor asked in a hushed tone.

“I, my gentle Bugul Noz, am a Nightwind, a shapeshifter.” He sat on the log beside the creature.

The Bugul Noz frowned, which made his already hideously ugly face look worse. “I have not heard of your kind.”

“But I have heard of you, and what is more,
she
has heard of you.”

The large head of the Bugul Noz dipped, the sparse gray hair revealing a cranium pebbled with oozing warts and rippling lumps. His oversized hands rubbed together, creating a dry husk sound, for his flesh was mottled with calluses.

“I did not mean to frighten her,” the Bugul Noz explained.

“I know you did not. Her heart was breaking and you sought to help.”

“I should never have shown myself to her.” The Bugul Noz sobbed, his black lips trembling. “I know better. Humans fear me.”

“She believes it was a dream, friend. But it would not be wise to show yourself to her again.” He laid a comforting hand on the repulsive arm of his companion.

Silver eyes lifted to fuse with crimson orbs, and an understanding formed. The oversized head cocked to one side, the long ears swinging.

“She is with child,” the Nightwind sighed.

“Ah, his child—the one she calls for in her thoughts,” the Bugul Noz added, his warty chin dipping as he bobbed his head. He reached up a hand tipped with long talons and flicked away the tears staining his wrinkled cheeks.

“Aye, him,” he said and his tone was filled with disgust.

“What is your favor, Nightwind?” the Bugul Noz queried.

“I have sent for another of my kind, but he has yet to arrive. He likes the Abyss more than he fears my Call.”

“There is more of your race?” the Bugul Noz questioned.

“Hundreds dwell in the Abyss.”

For a moment, the Bugul Noz was quiet, then he hung his head once more. “I am the last of my kind. I am alone.”

“But you have a friend in me and in any of mine.”

At that, the Bugul Noz proudly lifted his head and smiled for the first time in likely a thousand years. Though the smile was ghastly and would have stopped the heart of a passing human, his companion returned the gesture and reached out a hand.

“Let us seal our friendship.” The Nightwind took the hot, calloused paw offered to him.

“I am your champion for as long as time is,” the Bugul Noz declared. “Ask of me what you will and I will offer you whatever you want. I will do whatever you ask.”

“All I ask is your help in keeping our lady safe. In exchang,e I will teach you the art of shapeshifting. You can look as you wish, my friend.”

Chiaroscuro tears slipped down the Bugul Noz's pitted cheeks, but they seemed no longer tears of loneliness—they were tears of gratitude. “Tell me what I need do.”

“My desire is to keep her from Sean Cullen. I have claimed her as my own and am doing all that I can to see they stay apart.”

“How can I help?”

“Run interference when I need it. One day I will call upon you. All I ask is that you be there on that day.”

The Bugul Noz placed his giant misshapen hands against his thick chest. “I swear it!”

The Nightwind nodded and settled comfortably beside the hideous creature. It was well within the realm of possibility to teach his companion to shapeshift. He wondered that none of his kind had thought of doing so before now. Despite the mood in which he was steeped, his pity went out to the creature at his side and he was happy he could help. He, himself, had often known the greatest of loneliness during his millennia of life.

And there was a side benefit, he thought, as he half-listened to the Bugul Noz talking about his lost tribe. If he could but do one great boon for a lost brethren—as he was doing for this poor being—perhaps the One Who Listens might take pity on him and help him rid himself of the curse that had turned him into a Nightwind so long ago.

He knew that was the only way he could ever be with Bronwyn McGregor, and being with her was his deepest desire.

Sean had been quiet during the flight to Ireland from New York City. He seemed not to notice the bright lights of the big city or the luxury of the private jet that had whisked him from the soil of his native land and into the wide expanse of night-darkening sky. He had declined the steward's offer of food and drink and curled up in his seat once the jet reached its cruising speed. He slept all the way to Shannon International Airport. When he was awakened, he remained silent, allowing himself to be led to the helicopter standing by to take him to Fuilghaoth.

Banking away from the sprawling airport at Shannon, Sean stared out the window, watching the myriad shades of green speeding beneath the helicopter's runners. Under normal circumstances, the bright blue of the Atlantic and the wild beauty of his ancestral land probably would have taken his notice. That morning, though, all he noticed was the darkness of the craggy rocks over which they flew, the jutting rows of stone fences dotting the foreign soil, and the forbidding wind that pushed at the craft, making it rise and fall.

Feeling detached from his surroundings, he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the cool glass of the window. He was sleeping too much, he thought. More than he ever had, but, to his way of thinking, what difference did it make? He had nowhere to go save the institute. He had no one to go to. Being with Bronwyn, now that he knew what lurked inside him, was out of the question. He had nothing to look forward to except years of turning from man to beast and back again.

And for what purpose?

Although he longed to question Brian, he had not. The last night in jail, he had spent a restless time staring at the floor, unable to accept the things he'd learned, but understanding the truth of them. Morning's light had brought with it a realization that his life was now in the hands of a stranger and he had no more say over it than a lab rat.

“I called to ask her if she'd like to say goodbye to you,” Brian had told him when Sean left the jail. The man was waiting at the curb, a black limousine at the ready. “She said to tell you to mind your manners and make her proud.”

It was on the tip of Sean's tongue to ask how he would do that. He wanted to know if his mother had been told what would happen to him in Ireland, but staring into Brian's eyes, he'd had his answers. He simply climbed into the luxurious interior of the limousine and stared out the window.

“Nothing is ever as bad as we think,” Brian said as the limo pulled into the MacAfee Airport on the outskirts of Albany. “There are always good things in everything.” He put a hand on Sean's knee. “Do you want me to tell you about the second time I Transitioned, lad?”

Sean looked at the man, saying nothing, then turned back to stare at the hanger they were approaching.

“Well, if you ever do, just let me know.”

Now, the helicopter lurched, dropping altitude suddenly. Sean opened his eyes. He wasn't unnerved or frightened. If anything, he began to entertain the thought that, if they crashed, the chopper might burst into flames, trapping them inside, and his worries would be over.

He chuckled at the morbid thought and felt Brian's gaze on him.

“Don't think things like that, lad,” Brian admonished. “That's tempting fate. Burning to death is a horrible way to die.”

To Sean, dead was dead and, at the moment, it didn't seem to matter how it was accomplished. He knew he'd never be able to take his own life, even had he been able to or the thing inside him allow it. Brian had told him
—"I know of a man who tried to kill himself once the revenant was implanted, but the parasite kept him from doing it. Dying by your own hand is no longer an option. That is the reasons I can no longer swim. I can no longer even put a toe in the water. The parasite keeps a tight rein on me..."

“Stop dwelling on such things, Sean,” Brian ordered. “We'll both live to a very ripe old age.”

Sean knew he had to find a way to shield his thoughts from Brian. He hated that every random idea, concept, observation, and notion he had was plucked with ease from the ether and turned back on him. He now realized how annoying it had been for Bronnie when he read her thoughts.

“Sean.”

He turned toward Brian.

“This is your life from now on, lad. Make the best of it.”

Sean looked away. To his way of thinking, he no longer had a life.

A ten-foot-high electric fence plastered with
Warning: High Voltage
signs in several languages, and a guard post, were the first things Sean saw as the limousine rolled to a stop outside the town of Derry Byrne. He craned his neck to look through the windshield as two guards left their kiosk and blocked the entry to the large gate. In their arms they cradled machine guns.

The limousine driver, Ciarán, hit the button on the electric window and the darkened glass rolled down. “Dr. O'Shea returning,” he told a guard. He lowered the window on Brian's side of the limo.

The guard saluted. “Welcome home, Doctor.”

Brian waved a negligent hand. “Has Dr. Saur returned?”

“He came in this morning, sir.” As the guard spoke, he turned to his companion and motioned for the gate to be opened. He stepped back, saluted again, then with his gun clutched to his chest, walked back to the kiosk.

“The guards are not Irish, as I'm sure you noticed,” Brian told Sean. “They are ex-Israeli commandoes. The one on the right has a kinsman who will be competing in the Olympics next year. Wrestling, isn't it, Ciarán?”

Ciarán glanced into the rear view mirror. “I believe so.”

“When his competition days are over, we hope to recruit him, as well.”

The gate closed behind them. Bogs lined both sides of the long road ahead. The rugged Twelve Bens mountain range to the north rose in the distance like sentinels.

“You will find we have a rather eclectic ensemble. Our cooks are Cordon Bleu chefs from France, although, for variety, we have a few from Italy. The gardeners—Dr. Dunne still enjoys puttering with his flowers—are from Japan. The housekeepers are German. We have some Spanish and a few Greek laborers, but most are from the Netherlands. They seem to possess a superior work ethic. There are no blacks and no Chinese, and with the exception of Andrei Barinsokhov, no Russians.”

“And there's only a handful of us Irishmen,” Ciarán put in.

“Lazy sods that we are,” Brian quipped, and the two men exchanged a laugh.

“In all, there are about three hundred inhabitants of Fuilghaoth.”

“What about the Stalcaires?” Sean asked, clearing his throat to get rid of the rust of disuse.

“He speaks!” Brian exclaimed, slapping a hand to his chest. He grinned at his son, but when Sean did not return the gesture, he rolled his eyes. “Lighten up, lad.”