BlackWind (22 page)

“Ah, that I may be, but you're lucky you're in here and the Nightwind is out there, McGregor, is all I'm gonna say.”

“What's a Nightwind?” Destiny asked, but Sheila ignored her. The older girl was staring at Bronwyn, who refused to look at her. She turned to Aryn to ask the same question, but stopped when she saw how pale the girl from Connemara had become. “What's your problem, Mooty?”

“I heard tell of them creatures,” Aryn said with a visible shudder. “Witches and the like bind them to ‘em and such.”

“Do more than bind ‘em,” Sheila mumbled.

“What is it you're trying to say, McPherson?” Bronwyn demanded, glaring at the girl from London. “Tell me and get it the hell over with!”

Sheila remained silent for a moment, then sat forward. “He came because you were lonely. He could feel it. Maybe you were crying and he heard you. Maybe you wished himself would come for you, anybody would come for you, and he left his lair to look for you.”

“Can't just up and do that without the witch what owns him giving permission,” Aryn said with a shake of her head.

“Some can,” Sheila disagreed. “Some what's been granted their freedom after thousands of years of service or such can go and come at will.”

“You're talking about a creature that's over a thousand years old climbing up Sleivemartin
and waving at me,” Bronwyn scoffed. “And you want me to believe that?”

“I don't give a rat's hairy ass whether you believe it or not,” Sheila snarled. “But if you heard him calling you from over the distance to that hill and you felt him touching you, then you've got a Nightwind after you, Bronwyn McGregor!”

“Which isn't necessarily a bad thing,” Aryn remarked. At Sheila's snort, she turned to the London girl. “Well, he does champion women who haven't had an easy time of it.”

“Aye, and at what price?” Sheila asked.

“Where the hell are these things supposed to live?” Bronwyn inquired.

“Some say they live in lairs deep beneath the bogs,” Aryn answered. “Some say they aren't of this earth. Some say they are from beyond this universe, even.”

“Oh, for the love of Pete,” Bronwyn groaned. “Now you're talking about spacemen!”

“Aye, like the one they have up at Fuilghaoth,” Aryn threw at her.

Sheila stared at Aryn. “Where's that?”

“Ain't no one supposed to know of it,” Aryn muttered. “Best not to be speaking of it.”

“Then why'd you mention it?” Destiny asked.

“Dunno,” Aryn replied with a dismissive shrug.

“They got a spaceman there like the one at Area Fifty-One in the States?” Sheila questioned.

“I done said too much.” Aryn folded her arms over her scrawny chest. “Ain't gonna say no more.”

“Could they have captured a Nightwind?” Sheila asked, interest shining in her dark brown eyes.

“Leave off, McPherson,” Aryn insisted. “Folks have been known to come up disappeared for asking questions of Fuilghaoth.”

“You girls are full of it,” Bronwyn said. She picked up her rack and dumped the tiles back into the box. “I'm not going to listen to this crap.” She pushed back her chair and was about to stand when Sheila and grabbed her arm.

“He's an incubus,” the London girl said. “Handsome as they come on the outside but as evil as sin on the inside. It's best you not encourage him.”

Bronwyn jerked her arm from the girl's hard grasp. “Will you let it rest?”

“He has laid claim to you and it won't be easy, if even possible, to be rid of him,” Sheila stated. “You might well be his for the rest of your life.”

“Shut up!” Bronwyn shouted, drawing the eyes of everyone in the room.

“Has he whispered his name to you?” Sheila asked. “If you knew his name...”

“Go to hell!” Bronwyn snarled, striding away even as Sister Mauveen bore down on her.

Behind the bottle-glass spectacles she wore half-way down her thin nose, the nun had a fiery look in her eyes. “Miss McGregor! You will return to this room immediately!”

Bronwyn paid no heed to the harsh bark. She rushed from the room, several nuns close behind. She heard their hard-soled shoes slapping against the marble floor and the clank of their rosary beads knocking against one another.

“Miss McGregor!” Sister Mauveen brayed. “Stop this instant!”

Bronwyn picked up speed, fleeing down the labyrinthian corridors of the old convent. Never without an escort, she soon lost her way amid the twisting and turning passageways. Coming to a dead end with a moisture-rimed wall blocking her way, she stamped her foot and pounded on the cold wall with both fists.

“Sean!” she cried. “Damn you, Sean Cullen for not coming for me!”

“I am here,” a voice whispered.

“You are not Sean!”

“I would never leave you, Beloved.”

“Who are you?”

“Get up!” Sister Mauveen snarled as she advanced down the corridor toward Bronwyn. Not giving Bronwyn a chance to do as she was ordered, the nun grabbed her arm and jerked her to her feet.

“Be careful of her, Sister,” one of the nuns warned.

“You will rue the day you cursed in my social hall!” Sister Mauveen hissed, shaking Bronwyn.

“Sister,” came the admonishment. “Remember her condition.”

“Whoring little tramp,” Sister Mauveen ground out, her spittle flying into Bronwyn's face. “You are a disgrace to your family!”

Bronwyn was dragged along in the nun's hateful wake like a recalcitrant child. She stumbled, her arm cruelly held in the nun's vise-like grip.

“Where are you now, my protector?” Bronwyn asked under her breath and was not surprised that her unseen visitor did not answer.

“Stop mumbling,” Sister Mauveen ordered. Her grip tightened and she smiled brutally when Bronwyn whimpered. “I will give you something to cry about!”

When they reached Bronwyn's room and Sister Geraldine Marie made to enter, Sister Mauveen would not allow it. “Wait outside!”

“I don't think...” Sister Geraldine Marie began, only to have the door slammed in her face.

Bronwyn clenched her teeth as the ruler slammed into her opened palms. The stinging grew worse the longer Sister Mauveen gleefully applied her chosen instrument of torture. Avoiding looking at the glazed look of combined fury and pleasure stamped on the nun's wrinkled face, it was all Bronwyn could do not to cry out with the agony being inflicted on her.

“Whore!” Sister Mauveen chanted as the heavy, metal-edged ruler descended. “Harlot!” The force of the strikes grew harder, the epithets louder. “Strumpet! Slut! Jezebel!”

Bronwyn's lower lip trembled, her cheeks streaked with tears, but she made no sound as the ruler left vivid red impressions in her palms and on the tops of her upturned wrists.

“Hussy! Floozy!” Sister Mauveen shrieked. She lifted the ruler as high over her shoulder as she could and brought it down with enough force to splinter the wood.

Bronwyn screamed as the ruler's metal edge sliced open the flesh of her left hand. Stumbling away from the demented nun who shouted at her to stay still, Bronwyn crouched against the wall, her back to an enraged Sister Mauveen.

“Turn around! Give me your hands!” the nun demanded, pulling at Bronwyn's arm.

When Bronwyn refused to budge, Sister Mauveen grabbed a handful of Bronwyn's hair and would likely have pulled her around in that manner had not Sister Geraldine Marie stopped her.

“That's enough!” the nun shouted and stepped between Sister Mauveen and the object of her fury. She caught the other nun's wrist and dug her short nails into the mottled flesh.

Yelping, Sister Mauveen snatched back her hand and turned to glare at the smaller nun. “How dare you interfere with this whore's punishment!”

Bronwyn slid down the wall, cradling her bleeding hand against her chest. She whimpered; her shoulders shook.

“What's going on?” someone demanded from the doorway.

Sister Mauveen spun around to find Mother Superior just inside the room. She pointed a crooked finger at Sister Geraldine Marie. “This woman had no right to stop me from punishing this girl. I am—”

“Go to your room,” the Mother Superior ordered, and when Sister Mauveen started to argue, she stepped closer. “Do you dare to disobey me?”

Sister Mauveen looked as though she smelled something rancid. Her upper lips arched toward her aquiline nose and her chin puckered. “No, Reverend Mother.".

“Then do as you are told!” Mother Mary Joseph snapped.

With a curt bow that was less than respectful, Sister Mauveen spun on her heel and stomped from the room.

“See to the girl,” the Mother Superior told Sister Geraldine Marie.

Hunkering down, Sister put an arm around Bronwyn's shoulder. “Let me see, Bronnie.”

Eyes swollen, Bronwyn looked up and held out her injured hands. At the nun's sharp intake of breath, she began to cry again.

Sister Geraldine Marie looked at Mother Mary Joseph. “She is going to need stitches.”

The Mother Superior's jaw tightened and her eyes became flint hard. “See to it, please.”

Helping Bronwyn to her feet, Sister Geraldine Marie ushered her from the room. As she passed the Reverend Mother, their eyes locked.

“I'll see to it,” Mother Mary Joseph promised.

In the infirmary later than evening, Bronwyn lay on a cot, her face turned to the dank wall. She had cried all the tears she had in her and now all that was left was terrible grief and lingering pain in her palms.

“Bronwyn.”

“Leave me alone,” she said, her voice as detached as an automaton's.

“The nun will be punished. This I swear.”

Bronwyn buried her face in the pillow and tried to drown out the insidious words coming to her from the night beyond the walls of Galrath.

“I love you, Bronwyn,” he whispered. “I will always love you and one day we will be together.”

“I don't want you,” she said fiercely. “I want Sean!”

There was silence, then: “You will never have him.”

Despite the pain in her hands, she covered her ears. “Go away!” she yelled.

There was a soft pressure, a longing stroke along her left hip. She jerked, staring up into the darkened room, yet seeing nothing.

“You are mine.”

The pressure increased, then vanished.

“Who are you?” Bronwyn sobbed, her lip trembling.

“You will know soon enough...”

Sean opened his eyes, feeling as though he were wrapped loosely in a thick blanket of cotton. He swallowed and tried to turn his head, but when he did, his world cantered off to the side. He had to squeeze his eyes shut to keep the nausea from rushing up his throat.

“The feeling will pass,” Brian said. “Don't try to move for a few more minutes.”

“W...what did they give me?” Sean asked, his voice husky, grating.

“A drug called tenerse. Once you Transition, you won't be able to live without it.”

Forcing his eyes open, Sean grabbed two fistfuls of the sheet beneath him and moved his vision to his father. “You get addicted to it?”

Brian nodded. “In a manner of speaking. It's not a narcotic, though. Don't consider it in that light. Think of it as preventative medicine. Something like a drug to keep your blood pressure under control, or like insulin for a diabetic.”

With effort, Sean lifted his hand and rubbed his forehead. “I hurt.”

“I would imagine so. That was one hell of a seizure you had, lad.”

At the word “seizure,” Sean's brow furrowed. “What caused it?”

Brian glanced at Daniel Dunne, who stood by the door. Dunne shrugged. “Tell him what he needs to know.”

“Why don't
you
tell me?” Sean asked.

Dunne smiled crookedly. “All right,” he said, advancing on the bed. “Where do you want me to start?”

“What happened to me?”

“We believe it was your close proximity to the revenant queen,” Dunne replied. “She grew extremely agitated the moment you started up here. The parasite within you felt her and began to wake. You can liken it to a lost child hearing its mother's voice and trying to get to her.” He locked eyes with Brian. “It's never happened before, so we were unprepared for the severity of Sean's reaction or the intensity of the queen's.”

“The drug you gave me knocked me out,” Sean accused.

Dunne sighed. “If it hadn't, you might well have experienced an aneurysm or gone into convulsions. We thought it best.”

“Is that what Transition is like?” Sean asked.

“Since I've never experienced anything like you did,” Brian answered, “I can't say, but from the sheer force of the reaction you had, I'd say Transition will be a piece of cake for you.”

“That's not to say Transition will be easy,” Dunne put in. “It's a painful process.”

“Something to look forward to,” Sean muttered.

“The tenerse controls the severity of the change,” Brian told him. “And it also keeps us from Transitioning out of cycle. Without it, we'd have no way of controlling when we Transition or for how long.”

Sean stared at the ceiling. “How does it feel to be a puppet master, Dr. Dunne?” he asked sarcastically. “To turn men into monsters on a whim?”

Brian gasped. “Sean! Don't talk to...”

Dunne held up his hand to silence Brian. “Let him have his say. He is entitled.”

A snort came from Sean. His gaze slid to Dunne. “What good would it do to tell you how disgusting this whole thing is to me? How angry I am that, through no part of my own, I can look forward to a future of torment?” He turned away his head. “How much I ache because that future can't be shared with the only person I've ever cared about?”

“Ah,” Dunne said, sitting astride a chair beside Sean's bed. He braced his forearms on the chair's back. “That's the crux of the matter, isn't it? The girl?”

Sean's jaw tightened.

“You love this girl,” Dunne stated. “We are aware of your feelings and we know those feelings will never change.”

“Fat lot of good it does me that you know how I feel!”

“You've a lot to learn about being a Reaper,” Dunne continued as though he had not been interrupted, “but the main thing you need to understand is that Reapers bear a close kinship to what legend calls ‘werewolves.’ When you Transition, that is basically the kind of shape you will have.”

Sean flinched; his grip on the sheet tightened.