When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (4 page)

Detective Deneux took a drink of her coffee, and Teagan noticed that the cup shook just the tiniest bit.

“You’ve never told anyone that, have you? Sometimes you hear them at night, walking on your roof, and you pretend that it’s pigeons making the sound, even though you know—
you know
—pigeons don’t stir in the darkness. You lock your windows tight to keep them out. And how about those shadows that slide along the walls at murder scenes where nothing else is moving? You’ve stumbled headfirst into a fairy story.”

“And the singing mice are about to appear and turn me into a princess. They’re a little late.”

Seamus grimaced. “You need to update your video collection, Detective. It’s singing frogs now, fireflies with bad teeth, and hard-working restauranteurs. And there are no singing frogs in this fairy story.”

Teagan bit her tongue. There had been singing frogs in Mag Mell. They’d come out of their ponds when her little brother, Aiden, sang. And it
had
been like a Disney movie . . . until a water goblin had pulled Aiden into a pool, held him under, and tried to drown him.

“Then what kind of fairy story are you talking about, my Legal Leprechaun?” Deneux asked.

“The kind with blood and curses,” McGillahee said, and his voice gave Teagan the shivers even with the jacket over her shoulders. “Mostly Irish blood and goblin curses.”

“Let’s start with the blood,” Detective Deneux said. “Was that Irish blood at the school today?”

“No.” McGillahee leaned forward. “But if you want a tip, everything that happened, almost from the beginning—it was the Druids’ fault.”

“What?” Teagan asked.

Seamus raised his hand. “I know what you’re thinking.
Everyone blames the Druids
. But let me make my case.”

“Are there Druids at your school, Ms. Wylltson?” Detective Deneux asked.

“Not . . . that I know of.” But she hadn’t known there were
cat-sídhe
or Highborn in Chicago, either. She hadn’t known that
sluagh
, faceless creatures that feed on the souls of the dying, lived in the sewers beneath her house. Her teachers could be Druids, for all she knew.

Seamus gave them both an incredulous look. “Of course there aren’t any Druids at the school. The people of the tree are long gone from
this
world.”

Detective Deneux took an aspirin bottle from her pocket, shook two pills into her hand, popped them in her mouth, and chewed. She’d finished her own coffee, and didn’t hesitate to take the cup Teagan offered her to wash it down.

“What Druids are you talking about, Mr. McGillahee?” Detective Deneux asked after she’d swallowed the pills.

“I was getting to that. In the time before time, a people called the Fir Bolg lived in Mag Mell, the world-between-worlds with doorways into every corner of creation. Their children walk this earth today. Some of them can see things others can’t see.”

“Like cats that walk upright and shadows with nothing to cast them.”

“Exactly. Like talking cats and animated shadows. It was the Fir Bolg’s job to step through those doors, quiet as servants, never seen and never heard, to mend and tend creation. On this earth their favorite doorway led into Ireland, and the Fir Bolg had been given special charge to keep it until the people it was created for, the Milesians, arrived.”

“These Milesians see cats?”

“No,” Seamus said. “They were just people. Very smart, musical, magical people. But before they arrived in Ireland, Fear Doirich, the Dark Man, and Mab, Queen of the Highborn, came riding on storm clouds with all the Sídhe.”

“And who are the Sídhe?”

“The cats and shadows,” McGillahee said. “And others that are much nastier. You might be familiar with the
bean-sídhe
. Ugly hags that howl outside the window when someone’s going to die? Perhaps when your Irish grandmother passed? They probably told you it was a dream.”

“My
French
grandmothers are alive and well in Des Plaines.” Detective Deneux took another drink of her coffee. “Both of them.”

“Well, the Sídhe are goblin creatures—phookas, sprites, night hags—creatures Fear Doirich cobbled together from many worlds, powerful and evil. Now, I’m skipping a great deal, because I know you want to get to the Druids, and I don’t know when that Homeland Security wannabe is going to come back through the door.”

“Gilkyson is a bit of a twit,” Detective Deneux conceded. “But it’s nothing life won’t cure. In twenty more years.”

“When the Milesians finally arrived, the Fir Bolg came out of Mag Mell to help them fight the goblins. Amergin, a Milesian bard with a magical voice, drove the Sídhe out of Ireland. They fled into Mag Mell, locking the doorways behind them.”

“And what happened to this bard?” the detective asked. “Is he playing Vegas?”

“Mab sent her sister Maeve to seduce him”—Seamus made a magical motion with his hand—“and,
poof!
The goblins spirited him away. He’s only important to our story because he chased the goblins into Mag Mell, anyway.”

Teagan winced. The goblins had spirited him away, but not before Maeve fell in love with the bard and betrayed Mab and Fear Doirich. The Dark Man had then tortured the lovers to death, but there was no way Seamus could have known that.

“The Fir Bolg wandered through Ireland and all of the isles and they became the Irish Travelers, scraping by as tinkers, marrying the local girls, and giving their daughters in marriage. They were assimilating, and would have disappeared as a people, leaving nothing but a legacy of second sight . . . until a poor tinker named Cumhaill fell in love and ran away with a rich man’s daughter.

“The rich man called on Fear Doirich to curse the lovers. They died horribly, of course. And that’s where the Druid comes in.”

“The rich man was a Druid?” Deneux asked.

“No, he was a war chief. But before she died, Cumhaill’s wife had a baby. He was raised in the woods by a woman warrior and a female Druid, who named him Fionn Mac Cumhaill, and taught him to fight the goblins that killed his parents.”

“
That’s
the Druid you’re blaming for what happened at the school today?”

“There is a direct line of cause and effect, reaching through the centuries,” Seamus said. “If not for the training and the magical spear the Druid gave him, Fionn would not have been able to kill Aillen the Burner.”

“In the cafeteria?” Detective Deneux asked hopefully.

“You are single-minded, aren’t you?” Seamus said. “All this happened long before the time of King Arthur. Aillen was the demonic son of Mab and Fear Doirich. And he—”

Detective Gilkyson came back through the door, looking like he’d swallowed a slug.

“We’ll be leaving now.” Seamus stood and offered Teagan his arm as if she were a princess at a prom. “Good day, Detective Gilkyson, Detective Deneux.”

Three

“W
HY
did you tell her . . . all of that?” Teagan asked as they walked down the hall.

“Because she’d forgotten. Fallen out of the story and forgotten who she is.”

“You honestly think she has Traveler blood?”

“I can identify a Traveler face through abrasions, contusions, hangovers, and missing teeth. Wrinkles and jowls aren’t going to deceive me—there’s no mistaking the look of shattered dreams and a broken heart. She looks a lot like Doyle Kelly, in fact.”

Teagan stepped over a coffee stain. “You said you were half Irish.”

“My father was a Traveler who went rooter for a good Scottish Protestant girl.”

“He settled down?”

“For five whole years, before he left.” At the change in his voice, Teagan glanced up. It was only a second, and then his smile was back. “I understand it was a personal record, and a valiant attempt. When I was little, my mother told me the
glimories
called him away.”

“Glimories?”

“She made the word up. Glimories are glimpses of what once was, memories wrapped up in story and dream. Mother says they will lead us to the truth if we let them.”

“Did they lead your father to the truth?”

“It wasn’t glimories that called him.” The hard edge was back in his voice. “It was another woman. Called him away from his family and left him to die blind drunk in a dark alley after she’d moved on. Mother never knew, but Doyle Kelly did. He’s the man who made sure I stayed home and got an education. Now I go by my mother’s Scottish name, and I’m proud of it.”

“Deneux seemed proud of her name as well.”

“So, someone left her like a cuckoo’s chick in some French nest and no one ever told her. Travelers have done worse. You know I’m right about her. You saw her hand tremble when I mentioned the
cat-sídhe
, and her face doesn’t lie. Speaking of faces, you’re a little stunner, aren’t you? Mamieo told me I’d be rescuing her granddaughter, but you don’t look like a Mac Cumhaill at all. There’s something—”

Teagan waited, but he just shook his head.

“You don’t take after your father. I’ve met him.”

“I look like my mom,” Teagan explained. “She was a cuckoo’s chick in a Traveler’s nest.”

Seamus snapped his fingers. “Adopted. I’d forgotten that.”

“How would you even have known about it?”

“My father’s family were distant relatives of the Mac Cumhaills, of course. Isn’t every Traveler? I know most of the stories and do keep track of the clans. If your mother looked like you, I’ll wager she gave Mamieo Ida no end of trouble.”

“I don’t know,” Teagan said. “Mom never talked about her family or growing up.”

“Not close to the Travelers, then. Well, you are lucky I’m here, Teagan Wylltson.”

“Because you’re part Traveler?”

“Because unlike Kelly, I’m sober. And unlike Kelly, I don’t duck for cover when a Mac Cumhaill calls for help.”

“What?” Teagan stopped walking. “I thought
the Mac Cumhaill
was a hero to the Travelers.”

Seamus looked surprised. “You
haven’t
been raised close to the Travelers. Most people feel that Fionn brought the curse down on the clans when he killed Fear Doirich’s son. They consider it the original Mac Cumhaill’s fault that we have been hounded through the ages. Travelers shun the family. Until—” Seamus glared at an officer who was a little too interested in the contrast between Teagan’s pink pajamas and the garish coat.

“Until?” Teagan asked as the officer hurried down the hall.

“—Until they run into goblin trouble of their own. They know the Mac Cumhaill will stand between them and goblinkind, even if it kills him. The people who come when Mamieo calls? Someone shed blood for them.”

Teagan pulled the coat tighter around her. That actually explained a lot. Like the cabby who Mamieo had called once when they needed a ride from the Dunes State Park to Chicago. He hadn’t spoken a word to them the whole way. It wasn’t out of respect that he had come. He was paying a debt.

Teagan stopped before the door at the end of the hall. “Do you mean that when Finn was living alone on the streets, even if he’d found other Travelers, they wouldn’t have taken him in?”

“Not if they valued their lives. Being born the Mac Cumhaill isn’t an honor. It’s a death sentence, not only for the unfortunate young man, but also for everyone around him. Goblins trouble us all, Ms. Wylltson. But your cousin will die at their hands. Violently and probably alone.”

The Mac Cumhaill never dies peacefully, or old and gray
. Finn had told her that himself. And it was true that almost every new creature they met tried to kill them.

“So why are you here?” Teagan asked. “What do you owe the Mac Cumhaills?”

“Nothing at all,” Seamus said. “My senior partner is the one who was entangled. I’m doing him a favor.”

“Your family has never called for help?”

“A McGillahee never needs help. We’re incredibly lucky, usually wealthy, and can talk ourselves out of any trouble we get into.”

“You
talk
your way out of goblin trouble.”

“I’ve never had a chance to try it on a Highborn, of course. But it works with lowborn goblins. So much more reasonable than a bare-knuckle brawl. We’re politicians, lawyers, negotiators, dreamers of dreams that come true . . .”

“Dreamers of dreams that come true?”

“Well, my mother was. She always expected me to be as well, but I disappointed her. My dreams were all about motorbikes, mayhem, and fast cars. She couldn’t make me a dreamer of dreams, so she settled for making me a gentleman. Freedom awaits, miss.” He opened the door for her and waved her through.

Finn and Mr. Wylltson were sitting together in the waiting area. Finn was leaning back against the wall, his long legs stretched before him.

Mamieo Ida looked up from where she was
twinkling
at the dried-out old desk sergeant. She’d used more than a pinch of her glamour dust, because the white-haired sergeant was twinkling back at her over his trifocals, clearly enchanted.

“There you are, m’dearie!” Mamieo said. Teagan couldn’t miss the glare she threw at Seamus. She clearly wasn’t amused that Mr. Kelly hadn’t come himself.

Finn stood up as soon as he saw Teagan. She hadn’t taken three steps before he had crossed the floor, swung her up in his arms, and buried his face in her hair. It was like being wrapped in warmth and electricity, which ran delightfully along her skin from head to foot.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re unbearably beautiful when you get released from police custody, girl?” he asked.

“I can’t say that they have. And I apparently wasn’t in custody. Just too ignorant to leave on my own.”

“I’d appreciate it if you would put my daughter down, Mr. Mac Cumhaill,” Mr. Wylltson said. “There are others here who would like to hug her.”

Finn lowered her to her feet. Seamus had snatched the jacket that fell from her shoulders before it hit the ground.

“So the Gaglianos aren’t your only awkward connections,” he observed, shaking it out. “I hope you’ll consider what I’ve just been saying.”

“And what were you saying, then?” Finn asked.

“I was explaining some family dynamics.”