BlackWind

by Boyett-Compo

  “Helen? How are things now?” Lutz inquired. He listened a moment, nodding. “Okay. Keep us informed.” He ended the call.

  “Calm?” Dunne asked.

  “As though nothing had happened.”

  When two Reapers stepped out of the elevator, Dunne turned to look at them. “Take him down to C-Mod. I don't think he's near Transition, but I don't want to take a chance.”

  One Reaper came to the couch and scooped Sean into his arms as though the young man weighed little more than a feather. He turned and carried Sean into the elevator.

  “Are we to lock him in, Doctor?” the other Reaper asked.

  “That would be a wise precaution,” Dunne replied. “Make him comfortable before you leave him.”

  “Aye, sir.” The Reaper punched the button to the lower level and the elevator doors slid shut.

  Brian looked to Dunne for orders.

  “First thing tomorrow morning, I want you to give him twenty-five milligrams of tenerse, then take him to The Room. Let's see what happens then. I don't want him to see the Reaper just yet.”

  Brian bowed and walked over to wait for the elevator's return.

  Dunne and Lutz went into Dunne's home office and closed the door. The sound of their voices, though not the actual words, came to Brian. He closed his eyes, put a trembling hand to his head and, for the first time in years, began to pray.

  CHAPTER 17

  Bronwyn sat at the window and stared across the night-laced hillside of Sleivemartin. She was waiting for him and she knew he would come eventually.

  Just as he had every night for the last few days.

  She shifted on the uncomfortable chair and pulled the wool shawl closer around her shoulders. A slight draft came in from the window's frame and with it the smell from the waters of the Carlingford Lough. She inhaled deeply, longing for the freedom to stand on the shore and watch the waves roll in.

  “Freedom,” she said, and the word had a bitter taste.

  With the bitterness came frustration, which eventually turned to acute hopelessness at her situation.

  Then she saw him silhouetted against the sky, his long hair blowing behind him like a cape.

  She moved to the edge of her chair and put her hand on the windowpane in greeting.

  He held out his hand in reply. Bronwyn felt the warmth of his touch, the texture of his flesh against her cheek. She cocked her head into the phantom embrace and fancied his thumb smoothing over her lips. Closing her eyes to the sensation, she gave herself up to his offered comfort.

  “Bronwyn...”

  She opened her eyes and stared at him. Though distance and mesh-laden glass separated them, she heard his soft voice as clearly as though he was in the room.

  “Take heart, Beloved,” he whispered.

  His voice was infinitely sad. As sad as her own, of late. But it was his strength, his support, he sent to her, upon which she had come to lean.

  “I am so lonely,” she told him.

  “I know.”

  She lowered her head, tears filling her eyes.

  “Don't cry,” he beseeched. “Your tears hurt me.”

  She put her hands over her face and gave way to wretched sobs that made her shoulders shake.

  “Beloved,” he moaned. “Please don't cry.”

  She got up from the chair and crawled into bed. Curling into a fetal position, she grabbed her pillow and buried her face in the starched fabric.

  Pressure moved along her back, a gentle stroking sensation that was meant to console, to give succor. The pressure moved to her hair with a deft stroke that sought to soothe.

  The sound of a key turning in the door lock banished the gentle touch.

  Bronwyn whimpered, feeling more alone than ever.

  “You may join the other girls for social hour if you wish, Miss McGregor,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said as she opened the door. When Bronwyn gave no answer, the diminutive nun padded to the bed. “Are you all right, dear?”

  Bronwyn liked “Sister Mary Liz,” as she was affectionately called. She looked over her shoulder. “Yes, Sister.”

  Sister sighed. “You've been crying again,” she said in a voice that said she understood.

  “It's just so lonely here.”

  “That's why you should join the other girls. Danielle has agreed to play some Broadway tunes for us and Catherine Leigh will sing the songs from South Pacific.”

  “I don't feel much like listening to music tonight.”

  “Well, then, come play Scrabble with Sheila, Destiny, and Aryn. I know they'd love to have you join them.”

  Bronwyn sat up, wiping tears from her eyes. “You aren't going to let me sit here and cry myself to sleep, are you, Sister?”

  “Not by the hair of your future chinny-chin-chin!” Sister Mary Liz chuckled, pulling at the stray coarse hairs that seemed to pop up overnight on her own chin.

  Despite her misery, Bronwyn laughed and swung her legs over the side of the narrow bed. “You ought to pluck those, Sister.”

  Sister gasped. “What? And have them grow back worse than ever?” She shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  Bronwyn went to the armoire and retrieved her shoes. Slipping her feet inside, she caught sight of her profile in the mirror and stopped, reaching up to smooth the shapeless jumper over her blossoming belly.

  “Bronwyn,” Sister warned, clucking her tongue. “Don't dwell on your condition.”

  The slight mound of her belly was not shameful to Bronwyn. The babe growing inside was a product of her love for Sean. To her, it was not something dirty or sinful. It was a source of pride, but she dared not say so to the Sisters. And especially not to Sister Mauveen, who took great delight in condemning her for her unchaste condition.

  “It will be a boy,” Bronwyn said. “I will name him Sean Patrick McGregor.”

  “Come along. You mustn't be thinking these things.”

  Bronwyn stiffened. By order of the Mother Superior, she was not to talk about her condition to the other girls—as though they were both ignorant of her condition and blind to her changing body. Neither was she to discuss her pregnancy with the Sisters. The only time she was permitted to make any reference to the upcoming birth was with the physician who examined her each week.

  “If I don't talk about it, will that make it go away?” she had asked bitterly.

  “One must be humble,” she had been advised. “Humble and repentant. One does not brag about having committed a grievous sin against Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  “I am not ashamed of my child! I love my child as I love his father!”

  Bronwyn's outburst had assured her several hours of kneeling before the Blessed Mother to beg for forgiveness. It was a forgiveness Bronnie neither asked for nor needed. The sorrowful look on the statue of Mary only added to her growing sense of despair.

  * * * *

  Sheila McPherson and Destiny Ward were already at a small table by the window when Bronwyn entered the social hall. Aryn Mooty was talking with another girl, a cousin of hers, from Connemara. Aryn waved, obviously pleased Bronwyn would be joining them.

  “Grab a chair, McGregor,” Sheila said gruffly. “Take a load off.”

  Destiny groaned, glancing at Bronwyn. “Don't pay her no nevermind.”

  “She knows I meant nothing disrespectful,” Sheila complained as she rummaged through the Scrabble game tiles. “Not like that uppity Sinclair bitch who stuffed a pillow under her jumper and strutted about in the hall last week.”

  “Aye, well, she got her comeuppance.” Destiny grinned. “I'll wager she didn't enjoy scrubbing the floor of the loo with a toothbrush!”

  “Serves her right for being such a snob.” Sheila sniffed and pushed one of the wooden racks toward Bronwyn. “Try not to beat the bloody bloomers off'n me this time, will ya, Yank?”

  Bronwyn smiled. “I'll try not to.” She reached into the box to draw out some tiles.

  Aryn joined them, taking a seat next to Bronwyn. “How you feeling?” she whis
pered.

  “Okay.”

  “Have you felt him kick yet?”

  Bronwyn shook her head, casting a look around to make sure none of the nuns were close enough to hear. “I thought I did last night, but I'm not sure.”

  “Well, my sisters tell me you'll know when he starts to move. They say it's like the wee one is playing soccer in your tum!” Aryn giggled.

  “Lovely.”

  “Morning sickness passed, has it?” Sheila asked.

  “No,” Bronwyn said on a long breath. “If anything, it's worse.”

  “Next to the labor, that's the most awful part of it,” Destiny put in and shrugged. “Or so I've heard.”

  “Guess I'll be finding out.”

  “Well, my sisters always complained of heartburn and their feet swelling,” Aryn injected. “And hankering for things they wouldn't normally eat and haven't eaten since the wee one was born.” She cast Bronwyn a look. “Been fancy somethin’ odd, have you, lass?”

  Bronwyn shook her head. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” she replied, then thought about it for a moment. “Although I have been craving kumquats.”

  Aryn grabbed Sheila's arm. “Don't you say it, McPherson!”

  “Say what?” Sheila asked, her eyes wide with what the other girls knew was mock innocence.

  “Go on with you,” Destiny accused. “You know you was thinkin’ something dirty.”

  Sheila rolled her eyes. “I don't always think dirty thoughts.”

  “If you didn't, you wouldn't be here,” Aryn snorted.

  “She done more than thinkin',” Destiny chimed in.

  Bronwyn rearranged her word tiles. “I saw him again,” she said softly and became aware of the other girls’ instant quiet.

  “On the hill?” Destiny questioned.

  “What happened?” Aryn asked.

  “He held out his hand to me.”

  “You think it's himself?” Aryn asked in a wistful tone.

  Bronwyn shook her head. “No, I don't know who he is, but...” She looked up, glancing at each girl. “I felt him.”

  Sheila sat back in her chair. “Whatcha mean, you felt him?” she demanded, her eyes narrowed.

  Bronwyn looked down at her tiles. “It was almost as though he were in the room with me. I felt him stroke my back.” She reached up to touch her hair. “My hair and...” She bit her lip, not knowing how to tell them what else had happened.

  “Go on,” Sheila insisted. Her eyes were locked on Bronwyn's face.

  Bronwyn's voice was a mere whisper. “I heard him call my name.”

  “From way up there?” Destiny said with a shriek that had others looking their way.

  “Tell the whole bloody nunnery about it, will ya?” Aryn hissed. She cast a look about the room, as if daring the other girls to continue staring. Her look made the watchers hastily look away. When she was apparently satisfied no one was observing them, she leaned over the table. “Go on, dearie.”

  “That's all. I just heard him.”

  “You heard him,” Sheila stated.

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?” Aryn queried. There was a dreamy expression on her square-jawed face as she tugges at a lock of her long red hair.

  “Dimwit,” Destiny snorted. “She just told you he called her name.”

  “He did more than that,” Sheila stated. “Didn't he, Bronnie?”

  Bronwyn looked past Aryn's shoulder to the darkness beyond the window. “He called me his beloved and told me not to cry.”

  “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and Bridget!” Sheila gasped. She reached for the Celtic cross dangling from her neck. “Do you even know what it is you've gone and summoned, Yank?”

  “Summoned?” Aryn questioned, her eyes as wide as saucers.

  Mouth tight, eyebrows slashing together, Bronwyn snapped, “I didn't summon anything.” She had little patience for Sheila's ridiculous belief in the supernatural.

  “You might not have meant to call him, but somehow he heard you,” Sheila said.

  “What?” Destiny asked. “What did she summon?”

  “He can't come onto hallowed ground,” Sheila said, ignoring Destiny's query. “You'd best be thanking the whole legion of the saints for that, McGregor.”

  Bronwyn ran her fingers through her thick hair. “I don't believe in your mumbo jumbo, McPherson. Let's just drop it.”

  “He couldn't have come without you calling him,” Sheila insisted. “In some way, you conjured him from his lair.”

  “Stop it!” Bronwyn hissed. She remembered her earlier dream of the monster plastered to her window. Goosebumps prickled her flesh. “You're full of crap.”

  “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 outsi
de 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.