by Nina Bangs
Nebula nodded. “I accept the advice of one who is also—” she smiled at Ally—“more than a woman.” She turned and strode away.
More than a woman? Ally could grow into that title.
Darkness now enveloped the keep, making it no more than a black silhouette. The waves were muted thunder, and Ally shivered. No moon or stars tonight. A cold wind hinted at rain.
Tonight in the great hall, the keep’s ancient tragedy would live again. And Ally knew it would bear no resemblance to the moonlit memory of last night.
Tonight she and Katy would visit a different part of the keep, with a no less bloody inheritance. With Ally’s luck, she’d be left fighting off hundreds of tortured spirits, while Katy fiddled with her latest technical equipment and saw zip.
Ally sighed. May as well get it over with.
She’d just pushed herself off the wall when she heard the unmistakable sounds of Eamonn Clancy’s donkey cart drawing near. The creaky wheels and plodding hooves of the donkey grew louder until the cart materialized out of the darkness. Eamonn reined the donkey to a halt and waited for Ally to reach him.
Ally stopped beside the cart. “There’s no moon, and it feels like rain. They’ll drag Bridget’s body from the great hall again tonight, won’t they?”
Eamonn nodded, but didn’t speak.
“Why did you come tonight, Eamonn?” Ally decided the old man was as obsessed with the keep as Claudia.
“Something will happen this night.” He turned a confused gaze on her. “I was called.”
Called? Like on the phone? Ally had no chance to question Eamonn before he spoke.
“Stay away from the keep.” He turned his gaze back to the old building.
“Why?” Great. He was creeping her out.
Eamonn shook his head. “I do not know.”
“Hey, that’s a good enough reason for me.”
He didn’t smile and his gaze grew distant. Ally sensed he was alone with his memories.
“Fillean meal ar an meallaire.” He stared at her, through her.
“If you say so.” Eamonn made her want to run back to the wagon, jump into bed, and pull the covers over her head. She straightened her shoulders. The old man’s cryptic words wouldn’t intimidate her.
Eamonn smiled, his gaze once again recognizing her presence. “It be an old Gaelic saying. ‘Evil returns to the evildoer.’ Much that be evil still dwells here. The evil will leave this night.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged.
“Fine.” Okay, this wasn’t so bad. If the evil left, it would be a good thing, wouldn’t it? But logic didn’t work with her brain still on scary alert. “Guess I’ll be going. I have to get Katy so we can explore that room beneath the keep. Katy’s determined to see a fairy or ghost.” She sighed. “I appreciate your warning, but when Katy sets her mind on something, there’s no stopping her.”
He’d turned his gaze back to the keep, and Ally sensed his attention had drifted again.
“Ye’ll do what ye must.”
How encouraging was that? He could have at least offered her a hearty “Good luck” in parting.
Busy thinking about Eamonn’s strange behavior, Ally didn’t realize Katy was sitting on the wagon seat waiting for her until her great-aunt spoke.
“I’m loaded for bear tonight. Pulled out all the stops.” Katy handed Ally her fisherman’s vest. “Here, you check as I go through my equipment list.”
Ally almost dropped the vest. Talk about heavy. Katy would need help getting back up the keep steps. Ally set the vest on the stone wall beside the wagon. “Sure you didn’t forget something?”
“Cut the sarcasm.” Katy glared at her. “Start checking.”
Ally smiled down at the bulging vest. Black. Everything Katy had on tonight was black. Katy used to tell Ally about a program she listened to on radio years ago. The Shadow. Tonight Katy would be The Shadow.
“Electromagnetic meter. Raytek Mini Temp to measure temperature changes. Still camera. Camcorder.” Katy paused for breath. “Digital voice recorder and . . .” She touched her head. “Spelunkers headlight.”
“All here.” Ally didn’t for a minute think Katy would use any of this stuff. If she did see a ghost or fairy, she’d be so excited she’d forget what was in each pocket.
Katy shrugged into the vest, turned on her Spelunkers Headlight, and trudged toward the keep. “Think Brian might want to come along? I wouldn’t invite anyone else. Spirits don’t like too many people.” She cast Ally a critical glance. “Wish you’d wear more black.”
No. Ally wasn’t ready to face Brian yet. “He’s been in his shelter most of the day. I don’t want to bother him.”
Katy nodded. Thank heavens she was too fixed on her coming adventure to question Brian’s nonappearance.
As they reached the stone steps, Ally stopped to stare. “Someone moved the pallet.”
“I did. I moved it aside this afternoon so I wouldn’t have to mess with it tonight.” Katy started down the steps.
“Wait. A little caution is in order here.” Ally stopped on the second step.
“Why?” Katy turned her head, catching Ally in the glare of her headlight. “We know it’s just an old room down there. I want to see those spirits.” Determined, she continued down the steps.
“Wait. I just talked to Eamonn Clancy. He said to stay away from the keep.”
Katy paused. “Did he give a reason?”
“Not exactly. But he seemed pretty sure something would happen tonight.”
“Good. I’ve waited too long already for something to happen.” Once again, she started down the steps. “Let’s do it.”
Not willing to allow Katy to go it alone, Ally reluctantly followed her.
They stopped at the foot of the steps, and Ally shivered. The room smelled of damp stone and earth. The smell of . . . No. She wouldn’t go there. But her writer’s imagination was already there and enthusiastically drawing its own conclusion: the smell of death.
“Smells a little musty down here.”
Katy Gallagher, queen of understatement.
“Musty. Right.” Ally rubbed her arms in an unsuccessful attempt to soothe her goose bumps. But her goose bumps were no fools. They knew what they knew.
Katy turned in a slow circle, exposing the ancient stone walls to the glare of her headlight. Damp wall, damp wall, Claudia aiming a gun at them, damp wall . . .
Whoa! Katy backtracked and spotlighted the gun in her headlight’s shaky circle of light.
“Claudia? What . . . ?” Ally fought to swallow the boulder lodged in her throat.
“Uh-uh.” Claudia shook her head. “I’m Erica today.”
Erica. Ally allowed a cold, ugly possibility to take shape, become solid. “Dave said you had long dark hair. You cut and colored it. Why?”
Erica shrugged. “I have a different color for every occasion.” She smiled. “Red’s my killing color.”
“I don’t understand. What’s she talking about, Ally?” Katy’s voice was scared and uncertain.
Katy’s fear fueled Ally’s anger, her protective instinct. Erica wouldn’t get Katy. She started to push her great-aunt toward the steps.
Erica laughed. “Wouldn’t do that, Ally. I can shoot both of you before you take three steps.” She gestured with the gun. “Move over by that wall.”
Ally tried to remain calm, to assess the situation, but the frantic pounding of her heart canceled logical reasoning. She needed to keep Erica talking until she could decide what to do.
Ally moved to where Erica had indicated, pulling a strangely quiet Katy with her. Erica then shifted her position to a spot that not only gave her a clear view of the steps, but cut off Ally’s escape.
“What’s this all about, Erica?” Ally clasped Katy’s cold hand in her own.
“It’s about Dave. I got sick of hearing what a perfect wife you’d been, so I decided to remove all that perfection. After you’re gone, he’ll forget about you.”
“If he doesn’t?” Ally wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but she needed to say something.
“I’ll make him forget.” Erica’s smile no longer looked young and perky. “Out of sight, out of mind. Isn’t that how it goes?”
Ally felt Katy stir beside her. Don’t say anything, Katy. But getting Katy to keep quiet was like holding back the sea.
“A trashy woman’s like one of those black widow spiders. Looks intriguing sitting in a dark corner of the barn, but when a fly flits up to take a closer look at her, he finds out he messed up big time.” Katy glanced around hopefully. “Where’s an exterminator when you need one?”
Ally jumped into speech before Erica could decide she didn’t like what Katy had said. “Why didn’t you let me fall off the cliff?”
She could hear Katy suck in her breath. “You didn’t tell me about falling off any cliff.”
Erica ignored her. “When Brian grabbed you, I figured he’d pull you back from the edge. Then he’d turn around, see me, and know I was the only one close enough to have pushed you. And with so many people milling around, I couldn’t take a chance on trying to push both of you over. So the only way to avoid suspicion was to play the hero.” She frowned. “You sure are hard to kill. I mean, I was sure that dumb horse would get so scared he’d run off the road, but no such luck.”
Erica shrugged. “Mercury must be in retrograde or something because my luck’s been nothing but bad. I had you dead in my sights when I pushed that hunk of stone off the top of the keep.”
Erica glanced at Katy, and Ally saw cold resolve in her gaze. “Aunty has to go, too. She’s seen too much.”
Ally felt the icy slide of horror at Erica’s casual dismissal of Katy’s life. “Someone will find us.”
“Not for a while. I’m a demolitions expert. It’s what I do. I’ve planted enough explosives in this old keep to make sure nothing’s left but a pile of rock. I gave myself plenty of time.” She took a quick glance at her watch. “I have exactly fifteen minutes. I’ll leave your bodies here, replace the pallet, and walk away. I’ll be on my way by the time the place implodes.”
You’re crazy. A phrase Ally had thrown around her whole life, but for the first time, it was true. And she didn’t dare say it.
Ally drew a deep breath and tensed her muscles. Talk wouldn’t change Erica’s mind. She’d have to try to rush her. If Erica used her gun, the sound of a shot might bring someone. But even as Ally thought it, she could hear the wind whistling and the rumble of thunder echoing from the top of the steps. The ancient drama in the great hall would be unfolding about now, masking the modern one happening so close by.
Ally drew on all her courage and focused on two goals. She wanted Katy to live, and she wanted to see Brian one more time to tell him how much she loved him. To hell with being unselfish. Life was too short, too precious to not take a shot at happiness.
She edged a little closer to Erica and felt Katy do the same.
Brian left his shelter and glanced toward the wagon. Dark. They wouldn’t be asleep this early. Wind whipped around him and lightning flashed, followed by the hollow rumble of thunder. He shifted his attention toward the keep. They wouldn’t be there, would they?
For the first time, he noticed the donkey cart in the shadow of the keep’s wall. Brian frowned. What was Eamonn doing here? Then he remembered. The great hall would live again tonight, and Eamonn seemed drawn to the haunting.
Brian was about to wander over to speak with the old man when the sound of a car stopped him. In a sudden flash of lightning, he saw Mr. Fitzpatrick from the bed-and-breakfast in Liscannor push open his car door, hunch his shoulders against the rising wind, and hurry toward him.
“I’m glad I found ye here, Byrne. This isn’t a place I’d choose to search on a night like this.” He glanced at the darkened wagon. “I have a message for Miss O’Neill. Ye might pass it on to her. A man named Dave called. He didn’t seem to know if Miss O’Neill would still be in the area, but he sounded upset, so I decided to deliver it as soon as I could. He said to tell her Erica booked a flight for Ireland. He seemed to think that was important. I don’t know . . .”
Brian followed Fitzpatrick’s gaze up to the keep where Eamonn still waited. He shifted his attention back to Mr. Fitzpatrick’s face at the man’s sharp gasp. Puzzled, Brian watched Mr. Fitzpatrick cross himself.
“It’s himself.” Mr. Fitzpatrick started to back away from Brian.
“Eamonn?” It didn’t take a genius to see the terror on the older man’s face.
Mr. Fitzpatrick nodded. “Over three hundred years he’s waited for his wife at this cursed place.” Turning, he bolted for his car.
Stunned, Brian watched the car bump and skid down the path to the main road. He looked back at Eamonn. Three hundred years? Impossible. But considering what he’d seen at the keep so far, probably not impossible at all. Determined to get to the bottom of Mr. Fitzpatrick’s story, Brian headed toward the donkey cart.
He didn’t get far before he saw the Old One padding toward him. Brian waited for her to catch up.
“Something’s going on, Boss. I don’t know where Ally is, someone named Erica’s in Ireland, and Eamonn’s a little older than I first thought.” Erica. Where had he heard that name? Then he remembered. She was the new woman in Ally’s ex-husband’s life. Why would she be in Ireland, and why was it important?
He didn’t have time to ponder his question, because he’d reached Eamonn. “Mr. Fitzpatrick says—”
“Ye must go to her.” Eamonn turned a fierce gaze toward him. “Ye must not fail her as I failed my Bridget.” He looked back at the keep. “Ye’ll find her below.”
“Below? Where . . . ?” The room beneath the keep. The one Katy had been so set on exploring.
Eamonn’s sense of urgency propelled Brian toward the keep. He didn’t know what was happening, but he understood he had to find Ally.
Brian had taken only a few steps when a sound froze him in place.
A high, keening wail swept over him, surrounded him, carried on the rising wind. It went on and on, the cry of a woman, filled with sorrow and loss. It wrapped around his heart and squeezed.
And when he looked toward the place where the pallet and steps would be, he knew what he’d see.
A woman stood by the steps. Clothed in a gray hooded cloak, she was as insubstantial as the night, as ageless as the stories told about her. Brian didn’t need her mournful cries to identify her. The banshee.
She’d come to claim an O’Neill.
Not if he could help it. He ran. He’d defy a dozen banshees, rip Ally from the arms of death itself if he had to.
Brian should have slowed down and formed a plan, but his fear for Ally drove him. He raced down the stone steps . . . and pulled up short as Claudia swung her gun to cover this new threat.
She frowned. “You know, this is the pits. Now I have to kill you, too.”
Brian’s gaze searched for Ally and found her in the darkness. He moved to her, then wrapped his arms around both Ally and Katy. He faced Claudia, no Erica. “This won’t work. You can’t get away with killing three people. Dave knows you’re here, and he’ll go to the police.”
Erica’s smile was eerily undisturbed. “Dave will believe anything I tell him. He loves me. And once Miss Perfect Wife is out of the way, he’ll love me even more.”
Brian recognized evil and knew it was too late for a plan. He’d have to rely on reaction speed honed by hours of Nebula’s exercises and hope for the best.
Erica sighed deeply. “Well, better get this over with before someone else wanders . . .”
Someone else wandered. The Old One padded down the stone steps and trotted, unconcerned, behind Erica. Erica narrowed her gaze. “A person can’t eliminate one ex-wife without the whole damned world showing up.”
“Something a lot scarier than the whole world is about to show up.”
Brian’s whispered comment caught Ally’s attention.
“What . . . ?” Sh
e turned frightened eyes up to him.
He bent down to Ally’s ear. “I’ll try to keep Erica talking for a few more minutes. The Boss is going to change.”
Brian straightened and stared at Erica. “What’ll you do after you shoot us?”
Erica glanced at her watch. “I’ll leave. I’ve placed explosives so that in a few minutes this place will implode. The keep will come straight down and bury this room forever.”
Hurry, Boss. Brian cast a nervous glance behind Erica, then relaxed a little. The Old One had huffed and puffed herself up to the final moment of change.
Brian knew what to expect, but it was still a scary experience. The Old One demanded that all members of her team know her true form, so each new player went through the experience of watching her change. She probably figured it gave her an intimidation advantage at contract renewal time. Seemed to work.
“Oh my God!” Ally pressed her body against him.
His reaction exactly. Brian tightened his grip on her. A dozen Ericas couldn’t have torn his gaze from the shimmering cat form growing and flowing into something huge, alien. And even though Brian lived in a time when “alien” was normal, the Old One still remained really alien.
“That’s not going to work.” Erica waved the gun at them. “I’d be crazy to look behind me.”
Katy was actually quivering beside Brian, but he didn’t think it was from fear. She was finally experiencing something strange and wonderful in Ireland. Brian took an unbiased look at the Old One. Well, maybe not so wonderful.
“She sort of looks like the alien in that movie with Sigourney Weaver, only better. Saw that movie five times back in seventy-nine.” Katy ignored Erica and her threat as she cocked her head to gain a different perspective. “Maybe it’s all those jaws with all those big shiny teeth. Can she talk out of all of them? Bet she has more tentacles than an octopus.” Katy paused for thought. “Good thing she isn’t any bigger, or we’d need to grease her up to get her out of here.”
“Oh my God!” Ally was stuck in one-phrase mode.
“Shut up!” Erica shouted. “I’m not turning around, and all of you are going down now.” She aimed her gun.