Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (93 page)

“I’m sorry, boy,” she whispered before shutting the door on him, only to hear his paws scrabbling wildly behind her.

“Get out of my house,” she said with a bravado she did not feel. They seemed to fill up the entire space with menace and the promise of violence.

“Now is that any way to treat guests in yer home?” the taller one said, winking at her, a nasty smile splitting his pale face. He looked like a stork. The shorter was silent, but looked about as persuadable as a pillar of granite—and about as intelligent, she thought, noting the dull, small unwavering eyes that stared at her.

“What the hell do you want?” she asked, backing into the kitchen until the solidity of the counter was there to bear her up. There were knives in the drawer behind her but she knew she would never reach them before the men were on her.

“Yer husband is late on a payment, an’ we’ve come to collect,” the man said, his eyes making a slow survey of her from head to toe, as if to say he’d be happy to take the payment out of her.

“What payment are you talking about?” she asked, feeling the shadow of suspicion that had been in the back of her mind these last months take a more solid form.

“Has he not told ye? Well, we’ll leave that to him to explain when he comes home. Until then I believe we’ll keep ye company, myself in here and my partner in the yard so we can see yer man comin’.”

“I don’t know what your business is with my husband but I’d like you to leave.” She curled her hand through the drawer pull, wondering if she would have time to yank it open and grab a knife, or if she would only be handing them a weapon to be used against her in doing so. Finbar was barking now, a hoarse, desperate sound as though he smelled her fear through the wooden barrier between them.

The tall man walked toward her, menace oozing from every pore. He was lean and bony, but she knew that was always deceptive, for he would still be stronger than she was and that was all that mattered.

He swept his arm across the countertop next to the big window and all the wee pots and trays filled with seedlings tumbled to the floor, breaking their delicate stems and necks, dirt scattering across the shiny pine planks. Then he grabbed her arm hard, twisting the fingers that were still curled inside the drawer pull.

“Don’t even fockin’ think it, lady,” he hissed, his breath in her face reeking and sour. She twisted a little in his grip, her fingers feeling like they would break if he applied even slightly more pressure.

She took a breath, her insides unmoored as though they had turned to ice water, the baby a hard ball of fragility in the midst of this. “Please go,” she said, voice barely above a whisper, for her throat was thick with fear.

In response to her plea, the man merely let her go and went to sit at the table, making it clear he had no intention of leaving. The squat block of his partner moved off out the door to watch for Casey’s arrival.

She rubbed her hand, flexing the fingers to be certain they weren’t sprained. The middle one was slightly swollen and throbbed with every overcharged beat of her heart but it was straight and she was quite certain it wasn’t broken.

As she stood feeling down each bone in her hand, her brain flitted through what few options she might have for getting this bastard out of her house. Certainly there was no way to physically remove him unless she had a weapon of some sort and could surprise him with it. Even then, she was taking a huge risk that he would simply grab it from her—unless it was a weapon that required too much risk for him to attempt to take it.

She took a deep breath, stiffened her spine and said, “I’m going to put the kettle on. Would you like a cup of tea?”

The man gave her an odd look, as well he might with this sudden about face. “No, I don’t want no fockin’ tea, an’ don’t get any notions about throwin’ the kettle on me once it’s boiled neither.”

“This is my house, and I will have a cup if I like,” she said tartly. “If you refuse to leave, then the least you can do is accept what hospitality is offered. Or did your Mammy not teach you the least bit of manners?”

“Fine, make a pot of tea,” he said, clearly exasperated by her behavior. “But make a fockin’ wrong move an’ ye’ll be sorry.”

She nodded barely controlling an urge to spit in his face. Just then the baby moved, a slow soft ripple that sent a surge of fear through her system for what she was about to do. She prayed that Conor would sleep through this because if either of these bastards took so much as a step toward the stairs she was going to have to kill them, no matter what it meant for her.

It wasn’t tea leaves she wanted, but rather what she had stowed behind the tea in an old biscuit tin.

She reached back as far as she dared into the cupboard, making a show of not being able to find the tea. She could feel the man’s eyes on her back. A fine trickle of sweat ran down her spine and nausea churned her stomach. The baby was making little hiccupy motions inside, jarred no doubt by the massive amount of adrenaline coursing through its mother’s body. She stretched just a tiny bit farther and felt the edge of the tin. Her bruised fingers clawed at it, hoping to God that she wouldn’t just push it farther off.

“What’s takin’ ye so long?” the man asked, irritably.

“The Lyons is at the back of the cupboard,” she said trying to feign as much nonchalance as a woman with a thug in her house was likely to be able to feel.

The gun had been there in the cupboard, up high, since the last time she had lived here on her own and someone had been watching her from the woods around the house. She wasn’t going to be without protection and she knew if she had to put a bullet in this man, if he forced that decision upon her, she wasn’t going to hesitate to do so. The tin was in her hands now and she took it down, casting a glance over her shoulder.

He was looking toward the door, giving her the opportunity to ease the gun out of the tin and take the safety off. She took a quick breath and crossed the floor in two strides, jamming the gun into the man’s ear. He froze in place and put his hands out to the sides. She stepped back so that he couldn’t grab her and take the gun away. Just then, Conor started to cry.

“Alright then lady, take it easy. Ye could hurt yerself with that gun, likely as hurt me.” His eyes flicked toward the stairs as though he were weighing how distracted she was by her child’s cries.

“I know how to use it, you bastard, so don’t even think about trying to take it. You’re in my home. Do you think I’ll hesitate to kill you? I suggest you move toward the door slowly and then get the fuck out of my house and yard. Now.”

Conor was working himself up to a full throttle panic, as if he sensed that below stairs something was very wrong. She was nearing complete panic herself and she knew the man would use it to his advantage if the opportunity presented itself. She could not allow it to happen. She had to get him out of here.

She pushed him toward the door, finger slick on the trigger. At this point it seemed as likely she would kill him by accident as by design.

“Open the door,” she said. The man did as bid and opened it, stepping out carefully with his hands up in the air, so his own partner wouldn’t take a shot.

“Go down the stairs and move across the yard. Don’t even bother to look back. Just get the hell out of here and take your partner with you.”

“We’ll only be back later, missus, an’ yer man can’t be here all the time.”

“Next time, I’ll shoot you on sight.”

She gave him a shove toward the three stairs that ran down to the yard, desperate now, for Conor’s screams had escalated, with those awful silent gaps that meant he wasn’t breathing between cries. Sweat was pouring down her back and sides and her hand was so slick on the gun that she was afraid it would slip right out of her grasp.

The man took the stairs slowly, or so it seemed to Pamela, whose heart was pounding as adrenaline poured in unceasing waves through her body. She felt as though an invisible cord stretched between her and Conor and it yanked at her with each scream.

The ground exploded near the man’s feet as he came off the final stair and he jumped sideways, stumbling and nearly losing his balance. For a second she thought she had squeezed the trigger accidentally, then realized the explosion of dirt had resulted from a bullet coming from a completely different direction.

Apparently the man thought the same for he said, “Jesus—I’m moving just as ye told me to.”

“Not fast enough for me,” said a voice from the edge of the tree line. The other man, hands firmly trussed behind his back, walked out with a knife to his throat. Holding the knife was her husband. Out from behind Casey stepped Lewis Guderson, racking another cartridge into the shotgun he had pointed directly at the tall man’s chest. Owen stood on the tree line, a shotgun held at the ready. Casey’s face was dead white but set in lines of rage of a sort she had seen on him only twice before.

“Go inside, Pamela.” Casey said, and his voice brooked no opposition. “Lock the door and stay away from the windows.” She ran back into the house, wrenching open the door to Lawrence’s old room, barely feeling the tread of each stair as she took them as fast as her shaking legs would allow. Finbar streaked up behind her, as intent on the dreadful crying as she was.

She scooped Conor up and held him close to her body. He clung to her, his tiny fists gripped tight in her blouse. His howling slowly came down out of the rafters, reducing to snuffles of anxiety within minutes.

“Oh baby,” she said, “Mama is so sorry.” She rocked him and felt his body slowly relax into her own. His skin was clammy with fear, hair damp from the exertion of screaming.

She held him tightly and walked to the tub. The only window in the bathroom was up high and therefore not a danger.

Conor clapped his hands excitedly as soon as she shut the bathroom door.

“Mama, baf, baf!”

His tiny face was still streaked with tears, but his snuffles were eclipsed by the thought of a bath. Like her, Conor loved water, and was never happier than when he was in a tub filled with it. Right now, it was likely the best thing she could do for him.

She half-filled the tub with warm water, adding in a little of the lavender oil she often used for its calming effect.

She made happy noises at Conor as she washed him and played with him, but her mind felt as though it were on a greased track, sliding out of control. Three men well armed against two who were unarmed, for she had seen Owen pat down the man on the ground as she was running into the house.

It seemed unnervingly silent, and she could not hear so much as a voice, nor the crank of an engine starting. She would have to wait until Casey either walked in through the door, or he did not.

Conor would happily play in the water until he was entirely pruned, but right now she didn’t mind. The water was still warm and there was nothing else to do but worry and try to resist the temptation to look frantically out the windows.

She laid her head on the side of the tub, watching Conor. He happily smacked the water, shrieking with delight when it splashed back up into his face, and conducting a long conversation with a rubber duck—which mostly consisted of Conor saying ‘bad’ to the duck and then slapping it firmly on the bill. She put a hand to her belly as though she could cradle the inhabitant within and keep it safe from harm.

“Keep us safe,” she said softly, though she wasn’t certain if she spoke to God or her husband. Nor was she certain either of them could.

Outside the yard was quiet, for against two shotguns
and a large knife there wasn’t a great deal to say. Lewis and Owen stood with shotguns trained on the two men, faces impassive. That they would not hesitate to shoot was clear.

For his part, Casey was struggling against the terrible red surge he had known only a few times before in his life. That fury urged a man to kill, to do it quick and clean, and have it over with.

“Do not mistake me,” he said, to the man who knelt at his feet facing away, Casey’s blade drawing a thin line of blood from his throat, “for I will kill ye an’ have little compunction about it. Should ye make the mistake of goin’ near my wife or son again, ye are as good as dead. An’ it matters not who ye send after me, I’ll survive what I must to have my revenge on ye.”

He pulled the knife away, though the desire to kill was still there throbbing in his fingertips, pulsing hard in his chest and throwing its red brand across his eyes. That these men had the gall, the nerve to come upon his own land and threaten his family, to bring weapons into his place of sanctuary, made him angry enough to have killed them with his bare hands.

Clutching his throat, the squat man stumbled toward the lane, his partner following. Lewis kept the shotgun trained on them both until they were gone from view. Casey followed to the head of the lane, keeping the house in sight. He stood for a time, blood coursing heavy beneath his skin, feeling the vulnerability that lay in loving others, in being human, as the rage ebbed away and the reality sank in.

He turned and walked back toward the house. It lay in the last slant of the day’s sun, emerald green sills and door gleaming in the light, the whitewash dazzling and the scent of the earth slowly wakening sharp on the air. This house and the people who lived within it were everything to him. The thought that he might have lost them all today was enough to put a man on his knees.