Haunting Warrior (4 page)

She only stared at him for a long, drawn moment, but her silence answered the question. What else would it be about?

“You’re meant to find it, Rory.”

“Why?” When she didn’t answer, he tried again. “At least tell me what I’m
meant
to do with it once I figure out where it is?”

“You’ll figure it out when the time comes.” She cocked her head and smiled. “It’s a bitter pill, I know. Would it make you feel better to know that you’ll find the girl, too?”

“What girl?”

“Why the one you dream about of course.”

She held up a hand, stopping him before he could respond to
that
.

“It’s best you take care of loose ends before you go. That nice woman you walked out with should have a car she can depend on. Hers will finally quit running in a week or two and leave her stranded. I’ll tell you now, it will end badly.”

He scrambled to catch up with the subject change. “Martina?”

She ran a hand over the leather seat. “This one seems quite nice, and you won’t be needing it where you’re going.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Of course you’re not,” she said.

“I mean it.”

“Sure and don’t I know it.” But her smile contradicted her agreement. “I’ve seen where you live. I’ve seen
how
you live, Rory.”

She’d been to his apartment? He scowled, thinking of her wandering through the small rooms, trailing her dead fingers over his scant possessions. His furnishings were sparse—the main room dominated by his weight set and TV. Only a couch and a coffee table that more often than not served as the dinner table kept them company.

“I don’t spend much time at home,” he told her. “And when I’m there, I work out, watch TV, or sleep. What’s the point in clutter?”

“Clutter?” she snorted. “Well you certainly don’t have to worry about that. What do your lady friends say when they see how you live?”

“They don’t see how I live. We go out, we go to their place. Keeps things simple.”

Nana looked as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or scold at that. “And tell me why is it that simple’s the goal, Rory?”

“I’ve had complicated. It didn’t work for me.”

She made a derogatory sound. “Well I’m thinking you’ll need a new plan, then, because things are about to get very complicated for you, darlin’. Very complicated indeed.”

And she looked extremely pleased with herself about it. Apparently satisfied by his glowering face, she let out a deep breath and then nodded. “Well, that’s it for me, then. I’ve done what I came for, and now it’s time to go. I’ll be seeing you at the wake no doubt. Be warned, I won’t look as good as I do now, I’m sure. Your stepfather has taken it on himself to pick out my dress.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “Poor lamb, he’s quite torn up over my passing. Good night, then.”

Stunned, Rory realized she meant to leave.

“Wait. That’s it? That’s all?”

“Don’t dally in coming. The wake is on Thursday. I’m sure they plan quite a feast in my honor, and you won’t want to miss that.”

“I don’t give a damn about the wake.”

She sniffed, insulted. “Well, have it your way. But you won’t want to be late no matter. Even destiny has a schedule.”

And with those parting words, she waved good-bye and simply disappeared.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said to the quiet that filled the spaces where she’d been. “You hear me? I’m not going anywhere.”

 

S
ARAID dreamed of the man again. A stranger whose features she could never discern, though he felt familiar and a part of her craved him. Like air. Like water. It made no sense, but then again, it was only a dream.

She sighed and rolled over onto her back. Her four sleeping brothers lay in a row beneath the open sky, next to a fire long since banked to ash. Above, the glittering stars were harshly bright in the deceptive tranquility of the night, and the moon glared flat and hard from the tapestry of the velvet sky. It cast writhing shadows into the trees and painted menace onto the most harmless bush.

There was no reason for it, yet something deep inside her tightened. Slowly Saraid sat up and stared from one twisting shape to another, her heart thudding like a
bodhrán
while the night became a swaddle, binding her fear tight against her. Nothing moved but the gentle rustle of branches in the light breeze; still the blackness of the sky pressed down and she fought the need to flee.

And suddenly she knew what was coming.

Wary, she stood, forcing the action, forcing herself to acknowledge that she was not trapped by anything more than her fear. Silently she left the warmth of her blanket and moved away into the deep and shadowed forest. It was not far from here that Cathán Half-Beard and his army of outlaws and Northmen had carved out their small and violent empire. He’d conquered the peaceful inhabitants with brutality that had left them shocked and meek. Using a tactic of the Northmen, he’d then offered safe harbor to any who would pledge loyalty to him. The broken survivors either agreed or were slain. Generally, it did not take the slaughter of many to compel the others to bow their heads and swear fealty.

He’d wrought the same devastation on Saraid’s people. He’d burned their
tuath
to the ground
,
slaughtered men, women, and children in a wave of terror that Saraid still could not comprehend. One moment they’d been sharing laughter and goodwill, and in the next they’d been under siege, running for their lives. Cathán Half-Beard’s men had pillaged their harvests, plundered their coffers, and stolen their cattle. They’d been left with nothing to survive the coming winter, not even shelter.

Some of her people had gone into the Dark Forest with Cathán Half-Beard and served him still. It vexed him greatly that Saraid and her brothers had escaped with their handful of loyal followers. He hunted them relentlessly.

She did not like that her brother Tiarnan had chosen to camp so near to Half-Beard’s forest tonight. He’d refused to answer her when she’d asked why, why he would risk such a thing. Tiarnan was her twin, but he was also the chieftain of what remained of their people. He did not answer to Saraid.

She paused, sensing something just ahead. As she watched, a hazy figure materialized like smoke taking shape and form. There was a leg, small and bent as if the rest of the person were sitting on the boulder behind it. A torso filled in, slight and short, then arms, neck, a head. Frowning, Saraid stared into the wrinkled face of an old woman she did not know.

Saraid had been visited by the dead before. It was her gift and her curse that their spirits sought her out. Many came before death even took them. Some came to warn her, some came to beg that she prevent it from happening. It didn’t matter what their reasons—Saraid could not help them. She saw death’s secrets, but she was never able to stop them.

She stared now at the old woman before her. She had dark hair, cut short to wave away from a round and lined face, tinged with silver at the temples. Eyes that looked black snapped with the reflection of moonlight. She wore strange clothing of a material Saraid had never seen. A weave of flowers covered the short tunic that fell just to the top of her hips, where it met pale blue leggings that draped her in a loose fit to the ground.

“Who are y’?” Saraid asked in a whisper, more startled by the fact that the woman was a stranger than that she was dead.

“Well isn’t that the question?” the woman said with a smile. “I’ve not the time to answer you well, so I’ll give you my name and you can do with it what you will. I am Colleen Ballagh.”

The old woman spoke in a strange manner, but Saraid had no trouble understanding her. It made her even more uneasy to be talking to a spirit in its own tongue. “Colleen of the Ballagh,” Saraid said. “What is a Ballagh? A place?”

“A thing, I suppose,” the woman answered. “It means marked. My people are children of one who is marked.”

Saraid nodded, though she didn’t understand. “Why have y’ come?” she asked. “I don’t know y’ and I couldn’t change what will happen even if I did.”

Colleen of the Ballagh laughed merrily at that. “Oh you couldn’t, could you? I think you don’t know the half of what you can do, Saraid of the Favored Lands, but that is as it should be. No gift given before it’s wanted is worth its weight.”

How did this old woman know her name? Before Saraid could ask, Colleen Ballagh pushed up from the boulder where she sat, moving with an alacrity that defied her age. On her feet were strange unnaturally white shoes with laces just as bright and glowing designs on the sides. Saraid had never before seen the likes of this woman’s garb.

Scowling at the spry woman, she said, “Are y’ from the Otherworld, then?”

“Most certainly I am.”

“So yer not here to show me yer death?” Saraid asked.

“Ach, what would be the point of that? I’m already packed in a black box, wearing a dress I hate, I might add. My son picked it, God bless him. He should have left that for his wife, who has some taste at least, but there you have it. Once you’re dead, you’re dead, and no one cares that you never in your life wore a dress so ugly. No, all I’ve to look forward to is waiting for my family to weep themselves sick over the loss of me.” Her grin was wicked. “Quite a loss it is, I might add. But it was time and it was the only way.”

Saraid didn’t know what to say to any of that. This was the most perplexing visit she’d ever had.

“The only way for what?” Saraid asked.

“For my grandson to come home,” she said simply. As if that should explain everything.

Frowning, Saraid tried to understand what the strange woman meant. “Come home from where?”

“California.”

At Saraid’s blank look, Colleen snorted. “Never mind that. Your life is about to change, Saraid of the Favored Lands. But you’d be knowing that without my telling you.”

“I don’t know more than life is a constant change for me now,” Saraid answered, bristling at the woman’s tone.

“Because of Cathán?”

Reluctantly, Saraid nodded.

“Aye, he’s a devil, that one. Even as a child, he was more trouble than good. But I had hoped for him.” She shook her head and took a few steps toward the camp where Saraid’s brothers slept. Saraid moved to stand protectively between her brothers and the woman.

“Oh, look at you, the little she-lion protecting her cubs,” Colleen teased. “It’s no harm I mean for them. They have their roles to play, just as you do.”

“What roles?” Saraid demanded.

“Sure and won’t I be telling you soon enough. Don’t get your laces knotted over it. In a few hours, your brother will be giving you some hard news, child. You’ll not like it. Not a bit, I’ll wager. But you’ll see you haven’t a choice and you’ll do the right thing.”

“What news?” Saraid asked, frustrated by the way Colleen seemed to talk in a whirl of unanswered questions.

“That I cannot say. Rules, you know.”

“Rules?”

Colleen tilted her head and looked at Saraid. “Have you never tried to change something you know is going to happen? I can see that you have. Then you know it’s like putting a stone in the flow of a river. It only diverts it. Trying to change one event in the course of the inevitable will only bring it about in another manner. Sometimes worse.”

Saraid nodded despite her intent to give none of her thoughts away to this peculiar woman.

“This is what I can tell you, and I know it will make no sense to you now. But it will eventually, and it will help you when you come to it.”

“What would y’ say to me?” Saraid asked when the old woman paused reflectively.

“Here it is, then.” Colleen cleared her throat and then pinned Saraid with a steady, black look. “A man will come to you in the guise of another. ’Tis the Book he wants—”

“The Book of Fennore?” Saraid interrupted.

“Is there another Book you’d be getting messages about?” At Saraid’s silence, Colleen sniffed and said, “I didn’t think so. Now, let me finish. It is the Book he wants; ’tis you he must have. He alone can save your people—my people, for somewhere down the line I will be born of your blood. You must learn to see beyond your eyes, or you and those you love will be no more.”

Saraid swallowed hard as she sifted through the cryptic words, waiting to be certain Colleen had finished.

“Who is this man who comes?” she asked, grasping the one piece that had substance.

“Ah, that I cannot tell you. But when he comes, I suspect you will know him.”

“But when will he come?”

“Soon.” She smiled and devilment danced in her dark eyes.

“Well that helps not at all,” Saraid said crossly. “Y’ could have avoided waking me for all of the light y’ shed on the matter.”

Colleen laughed out loud. “And aren’t you the little spitfire to be talking to one of the Otherworld in such a way.”

Saraid felt her cheeks heat with dismay. The woman was right. The Others did not take kindly to impertinence. Were there not tales amongst tales of the wayward hero who had taunted the Others only to find himself transformed to stone or toad or flightless bird?

“Ach,” Colleen said. “Don’t turn into a fecking paranoid on me now. I’m not here to give you feathers. You think I wouldn’t tell you more if I could? It’s a risk I take telling you anything at all, but a risk worth the taking. Just remember my words. I came from far to tell you them, whether you get their meaning or not.”

“A man will come. He wants the Book but he must have me instead,” Saraid repeated woodenly.

Colleen rolled her eyes skyward. “That’s not what I said. I said he would come in the guise of another. That’s important. You understand?”

Saraid nodded.

“You cannot give him the Book, Saraid.”

“I do not have it to give.”

Colleen’s smile made her uneasy. “Did you not hear me before? You don’t know what you have. Not yet.”