A cackle came from Aidan, now standing at Zachary’s feet. “You still believe in all that Tuatha Dé Danann shite? There’s no Dagda coming, and no Óengus. There never was such a thing, and no faeries, neither. The only thing there is, is ghosts, and we’re gettin’ rid of them now.”
Zachary strained at his bonds, to no avail, but he remained silent behind his own gag—for my sake, no doubt.
I wriggled my wrists and pushed my right thumb toward my palm to make my hand as narrow as possible. My shoulders ached already, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the meltdown of the shades at Zachary’s proximity.
Nuala withdrew a long knife from beneath her robe. Its curved blade glinted in the candlelight. “Bring her over here.”
I cried out as Colm pushed me forward, toward Zachary. I wanted to shut my eyes, but had to keep aware of my surroundings.
“Don’t do this,” Deirdre pleaded. “It’s not what Nana wants.”
“It’s what our da wants!” Nuala sneered at her sister. “You’re just jealous because he visits me.”
“ ‘Visits’? Ha. More like ‘torments.’ I’m glad he doesn’t haunt me that way. I’m glad it’s not my fault he died.”
Nuala brandished the knife. “Shut up, cow!”
The pieces assembled in my fear-drenched mind. Nuala must have been the one driving when Padraig Murphy was killed in the accident, the accident that happened because of a ghost.
“It’s all right, Deirdre,” said the youngest boy, who sounded maybe thirteen. “When they die, they’ll be reborn in the Otherworld.”
“That’s right, Bran.” Colm put his hand on my shoulder. “And if they die together here, they’ll live together there. Happy ending.”
“You don’t believe that,” Deirdre spat. “You’re just trying to convince Bran it’s okay to murder.”
“There’s no such thing as murder,” Bran said. The words from such a youthful mouth chilled me. I shut my mind to the terror and focused on my hands again.
“Where is Da, anyway?” Bran asked. “He was supposed to be here for this. He was supposed to tell us what to do.”
“We don’t need him!” Nuala snapped. “We know the ritual, we know the chant, and it’s time to start. There’s five minutes until sunset. If he’s not here by then, we kill them, anyway.”
I knew why Padraig wasn’t in the chamber—because Zachary was here. No ghost or shade could stand his presence.
“I can’t do this!” Deirdre tore off her dark gray robe and fled the chamber down the passageway, leaving her four siblings behind.
“You think she’ll tell?” Bran asked.
“She won’t tell.” Nuala sat on the edge of the basin. “Make the girl kneel.”
Colm shoved me down near Zachary’s head, atop his discarded clothes.
“Five minutes,” said Aidan. “Time to clear our minds while Nuala prepares the first sacrifice.” He lit his own candle with a lighter, then switched off his flashlight. “We call on the power of the oak. Give us your strength.”
As the others lit their candles off his, then began to chant and sway, I flashed back to the first day I’d ever spent with Zachary. Eowyn had served us tea in mugs marked with letters of the old Irish alphabet, whose meanings went with the trees they matched. Logan had just died, so when I saw quert, the letter for apple and love, I nearly broke down. Zachary had traded me for his own, duir, the oak. The letter for strength.
My anger surged. The strength of the oak is mine, you bastards. Zachary gave it to me when I had none of my own.
By this point I’d turned one of my hands and tucked it inside the other. I pulled and twisted and felt my right hand slip halfway out. But even if I could get out of these bindings, then what? I couldn’t overcome four people to escape—much less cut his ties. Though the shades made it hell to look at Zachary, I wouldn’t leave without him.
Nuala’s three brothers fixed their eyes on their own candles as she balanced the long knife on her fingertips, above Zachary’s bare chest.
No . . .
I flexed my wrists again. The tie slipped another inch, just over the ridge of my thumb.
Nuala grasped the knife handle and made the first cut. Zachary let out a choked gasp, his eyes bulging wide with pain and shock.
I stared at the blood dribbling over his ribs and into the stone basin. The sight of it, and the sound of his voice, shot to the bottom of my soul—
—and stirred the shades.
The hum started low and angry, building in volume and power, throbbing inside my head. They wanted their freedom.
And I would give it to them.
Sticky with cold sweat, my hand caught in the tie. Come on . . .
Nuala cut Zachary again, on the left side of his chest. This time he made no sound, just chomped hard on the gag and shuddered all over. His eyes found mine and spoke all the pain he couldn’t voice.
But it no longer hurt to look at him. Inside, the shades had separated from my soul. They were ready to leave. Ready to fight.
Yet if I released the shades, Zachary’s presence would make them flee before they could stop our attackers. Unless I could somehow convince them to stay, at least long enough for me to free him and escape with our lives.
Logan’s words, delivered through Dylan, came back to me now.
Shades can do whatever the fuck they want. Anything but become ghosts.
They. Can. Choose.
I closed my eyes, though I hated to break the connection with Zachary. I had to speak to the shades.
Malcolm and Mary, I’ve sheltered you for hours, given you a semblance of life. You’ve tasted food, drunk coffee, bathed in hot water again. Help me now.
They curled and hissed inside me, feeling nothing but fear of Zachary.
Please, I asked them. If you help us get out of here alive, I promise in three months I’ll call you again. I’ll turn you back to ghosts.
They were listening. I’d gotten their attention by offering the one thing all shades wanted and only a few had ever gained: hope.
When I let you go, attack everyone except me, okay? I had no idea whether shades could control or direct their toxic vibes, but if I felt even slightly less shade-sick than my attackers, I’d have an advantage.
Just as my right hand slipped free of the tie, I felt Mary and Malcolm’s assent.
Nuala raised the knife. “Sunset has arrived.” She wiped the knife on a red silk cloth, then placed the blade against Zachary’s throat. “Time to die.”
Now!
The shades came, shrieking like twin cyclones, relishing the darkness of this place and of the souls of our would-be murderers.
The post-Shifters screamed, dropping their candles and covering their ears. Nuala squealed loudest of all, her long knife clattering into the stone basin as one of the shades shot directly through her.
Fighting my own shade-sickness—milder than usual but still powerful—I ripped off my gag, then retrieved the long knife.
“What the fuck?” Aidan yelled. He bent over his little brother, who was in a full-out shade-seizure. “Bran, what’s happening?”
I paused for only a moment in my confusion, then sliced the binding around Zachary’s right hand. My head was swimming from the shades, so I gave him the knife. He hacked at the binding on his left hand while I slipped off his gag. Without speaking, Zachary sat up to cut his legs free.
Colm crawled toward me, gagging and retching. He swiped a fist at me and missed. With no weapon, I backpedaled away, knocking over one of the black pillar candles. When Colm lurched forward again, I kicked out hard, smashing the sole of my boot into his nose. He collapsed facedown.
Beside me, Nuala vomited, moaning, and for a moment, I felt sorry—not for her, but for this ancient sacred site.
Aidan stepped out of the side recess, wielding Zachary’s switchblade. It gleamed in the light of the remaining candle. Despite the shades still whirling in the chamber, the young man’s stance was completely steady.
My vision going in and out of focus, I looked at Zachary, who was still sawing away at his last binding. Aidan took a step toward him.
“No!” I reached for the closest objects, the pair of pillar candles. Afraid to lose our only light, I picked up the doused candle and hurled it at Aidan. It bounced harmlessly off his chest, but grabbed his attention. Whimpering, I retreated against the wall so that he’d turn his back to Zachary.
“Maybe it’s not too late to end the Shift.” Aidan pounced, knocking me over and pinning my legs and arm to the floor. “Maybe we can kill you first.”
I flailed my free hand. It hit the lit candle. I seized it and smashed the flame into Aidan’s face, making him scream, and dropping us all into darkness.
But not total darkness. Dim light trickled in from the door. A shadow passed before it. Was Zachary running away?
Aidan shoved my chin up and set the blade to my throat. “No more pretty chants now. Just your blood on this stone.”
Metal slammed his jaw, so hard I heard something pop. He sank to the side, groaning like a downed steer.
Zachary stood above me, wielding the bolt cutters he’d dropped at the chamber threshold. “Come on.”
He helped me stumble past the basin, where his blood had formed a dark pool. On the way out, I grabbed his shirt and jacket, which I hoped still held our car keys.
We clambered over the writhing bodies and staggered down the passageway, following the light outside.
“The lock!” Zachary shouted. “Do you still have the lock?”
I pulled it from my pocket as we ran out into the rainy dusk. Zachary shoved the gate closed behind us.
“No!” Aidan leaped toward us down the passage.
I tried to hook the lock into the hole, but my hands were shaking from adrenaline and shade-sickness. It missed.
The gate shuddered with the full force of Aidan’s charge, opening a few inches. Zachary roared and threw all his weight against it.
“Aura, hurry!” Face and chest bleeding, he planted his feet against the base of the rock wall for leverage. Aidan stepped back for another charge.
Fighting my vertigo, I felt for the hole in the dim light. The padlock slid through and snapped shut.
Aidan slammed into the gate. He made an incoherent grunt, holding his jaw.
Though Zachary’s chest was still bleeding, he held me up and helped me stumble away. I whispered a silent thanks to the shades Mary and Malcolm and renewed my pledge to save their souls come March twenty-first.
As we drove off, and the place of darkness receded behind us, I sent out one last message, though its recipient probably couldn’t hear me.
Thank you, Logan, wherever you are.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
We shot off down the country road, bouncing through potholes and veering into the oncoming lane at every turn.
I didn’t tell Zachary to drive carefully. “Where are we going?”
“Out of this country. Now.”
“Do you need a hospital?”
“I don’t think so. They weren’t deep cuts. I just want to leave.” He winced as his arm moved to shift gears. “Clean me off while I drive?”
I sopped up the blood with his shirt, catching all but a few drops before they stained the seat of the car. The cuts were still bleeding, but slower than before.
“I’m guessing you released the shades, aye?” he said, hissing as I wiped too hard. “Why didn’t they disappear, since I was there?”
“Because I asked them not to. Long story.”
“Short story: You saved my life.”
“And you saved mine.” I started to shiver uncontrollably—remembering Aidan’s red-eyed rage, and imagining the switchblade plunged hilt-deep in my gut.
I made myself talk, trying to joke, of all things. “I can’t believe we almost got offed by a bunch of bampots.”
“Aye.” He nodded, maybe in approval at my Scottish slang. “Not what I was expecting.”
I picked up his jacket from the floor, nudging aside the bolt cutters. “Do you want this on? It’s cold out.”
“No, it’ll get bloody. I need a new shirt first.”
“Maybe we should call the police,” I said.
“Whoever finds those eejits will do it for us.”
“And then what? Your blood is all over that place.”
“I dunno, a’right?” His voice shook. “We almost just fuckin’ died. I am not stopping this car.”
Right. Escape. First things first. Good thing we had our wallets and passports so we didn’t need to go back to the B and B. I even had a change of clothes in the trunk from last night’s shade incident.
“What do we do once we get across the border to Northern Ireland?” I asked him. “Will we go to Glasgow?”
“Maybe. I dunno if it’s safe at home.” He shivered, his whole body jolting. “I dunno if anywhere is safe anymore.”
I cranked up the car’s heater, then leaned across the center console to rest my head against his shoulder. Partly to warm him, but mostly because I needed his touch. I could still smell the blood on his skin, and the bitter tang of fear in our sweat.
“I’ll never forget Aidan, trying tae use my knife to hurt you.” He released a low growl. “Nothing ever felt so good as smashing those bolt cutters into his face.”
“You really whacked him. I think you broke his jaw.”
“That was the idea. If I’d hit him that hard in the forehead I could’ve killed him. But I would’ve done it, if that’s what it took.”
Though the position was less than comfortable, I kept my head on his shoulder, unable to sit up straight if I’d wanted to. My strength was completely sapped.
Zachary brushed his fingertips under my chin, as if to confirm I was still there. “I wish I could believe in the Druids’ Otherworld, where people go when they die here, where they can live another life.”
“And then come back to this world when they die there, over and over again. It does sound comforting.”
“Except for one thing.” Zachary’s fingers wound in my hair. “This is the only life I ever want.”
Near the Northern Ireland border, the motorway became a smaller road, and the blacktop turned to a speckled macadam. I tensed, remembering tales of violence and mistrust, guards dismantling cars at the border to check for bombs.
As we went through a traffic circle, both our phones bleeped, making us jump. Simultaneous text messages.
I pulled out my phone. Was this a warning from MI-X? A threat from Nighthawk or the DMP—or worse, the Children of the Sun? Zachary thumbed his phone on, keeping an eye on the approaching traffic light.
WELCOME TO THE UNITED KINGDOM, said the message from my cell-phone carrier. DIAL +1 AND THE TEN DIGIT NUMBER TO CALL THE US. LOCAL CALLS DIAL +44 AND NUMBER.
I sighed with relief. “I thought entering Northern Ireland would be more dramatic. Guards and guns and big dogs.”
“Not anymore. Just text messages.” Zachary let out a soft curse. “But if we use our phones now, anyone tracing our lines will know we’re in the UK.”
“Someone like the DMP?”
He nodded. “Or Nighthawk.”
“Gina will freak if I don’t check in. She’ll call your dad and have him send Scotland Yard out looking for us.”
“Good luck to them, finding us.” Zachary turned right on a road that would take us southeast, toward the Irish Sea.
“Isn’t the airport in the other direction?” I asked him.
“Exactly.”
Twenty minutes and three towns later, we stopped in Warren-point, an incredibly cute waterfront town on Carlingford Lough. The downtown was adorned with Christmas lights, and its festive atmosphere almost let me forget we were on the run.
Still bloody from his wounds, Zachary stayed in the car while I checked us into a ho
tel, wearing gloves to cover my own bloodstained hands. At the pharmacy across the street, I bought first aid supplies and a long-sleeved rugby shirt for Zachary—dark reddish brown so that his blood wouldn’t show. I noticed a huge change in accent from the Dublin area, plus lots of the “hiya” I’d grown to love from Zachary.
In the cramped hotel bathroom, he held an ice pack to his bruised left eye and cheek while I cleansed his wounds, which had stopped bleeding.
After his tenth wince, he remarked, “Ever notice in the movies the hero gets shot or stabbed and doesn’t complain, but when the beautiful girl is nursing his wounds, he can’t stop flinching?”
“That’s because of adrenaline, and Hollywood.” My face warmed at his indirectly calling me “beautiful.”
He lifted his arms and held still while I wound the bandage around his chest to cover the two cuts. I pressed the last piece of tape on his back, smoothing it against the material.
Zachary lowered his arms and looked over his shoulder at me. “Now that the shades are gone from inside you, d’ye think we could end this not-touching-each-other shite? It’s frankly killing me, as sure as any knife.”
As an answer, my fingers slid up, over the unbroken skin of his bare shoulder. Zachary turned and pulled me close, tensing with pain but uttering no sound. He ran his hands ran down my back, then up under my shirt. His palms pressed against my ribs, and I savored the feel of his once-forbidden skin. Nothing inside me shrieked, and nothing hurt. I was all me again. All his.
Zachary stood and tugged me out of the bathroom, toward the bed. The urgency of his grip made my pulse leap, and I wanted nothing more than to feel the weight of his body on mine.
But I stopped short, almost throwing him off balance. “Wait.”
“Why? Are you all right?”
“Not really.” I rubbed my upper arm. “I still feel wrong, after the shades. They’re not in me anymore, but it kinda feels like they’re, um, on me. Maybe if I take a shower—”
He released my hand. “Go.”
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