by Nora Roberts
“We’ve got your plain cheese for the boring,” Riley began, “your pepperoni, your meat, meat, and more meat, and your veggie extravaganza.”
“I think I’ll start out boring and work my way up.” Sasha sat, laughed when Bran flicked a hand over the offered pies to send the cheese bubbling again.
“Riley and Doyle have reports.” Because it was so pretty, Annika chose a slice of the vegetable. “So do we. Who should go first?”
“I’ve more work to do on my part,” Bran began, “so I’ll cede the first slot to Riley and Doyle.”
“Since the Lord of Few Words here will skim over it, I’ll take the lead.” Riley opted for meat. “It turns out my guns and ammo contact here in Clare has a half brother—the oldest. A McCleary.”
“Just like Doyle,” Annika said.
“Just like. Sir Cynic wants to call it coincidence.”
“It wouldn’t be.” Sasha looked at Doyle with some sympathy. “It just wouldn’t.”
“Not to say you wouldn’t come across plenty of McClearys in Clare or Galway or anywhere in the country,” Bran added. “But no, it wouldn’t be. You knew this man from before?”
“Nope.” Riley washed down pizza with wine, considered it the best of the best. “He’s the cousin of a friend’s ex. Interesting guy. He knew your name, Bran. And I got respect and curiosity from him there. Short version, Liam—that’s the guy—Liam’s mother married a James McCleary, he went off to World War II, leaving his pregnant wife, was killed in the war. She had his son, and a few years later remarried. I’m going to say I could’ve gone in a couple directions to get what we wanted here, but I went straight for this one. Liam made us a fair deal, didn’t ask too many questions, and has a direct connection to the clan McCleary.”
“Going to make a point,” Sawyer said over a mouthful of pizza. “We didn’t find the blood connections—the confirmations—before we got here, to this point. So I’m saying it wasn’t the time and place for them before. This is.”
“We were already family.”
He leaned over, kissed Annika. “Damn right. And maybe we had to get there before we got here.”
“Not just a team now,” Bran stated. “A clann.”
“In Irish, children or progeny. So from that clan or tribe,” Riley continued, “people united by kinship, actual or perceived. It fits.”
“We started separately.” Sasha laid a hand over Bran’s. “Formed an alliance, because we weren’t a team, not at first.”
“You made us one.” Sawyer lifted his glass to her. “More than anyone.”
“We made us one, but thanks. And Annika’s right, from there we became family. And family remains even as a clan.”
“We should get us a coat of arms.”
Annika gave Sawyer a puzzled look. “But a coat has arms already.”
“No, it’s a symbol, like an emblem.”
“A heraldic design,” Riley supplied. “And you know, I like it. Sasha should draw us one.”
“That would be a first, but I can try.”
“Symbols matter.” Doyle shrugged when all eyes turned to him. “It’s been said often enough around this group. Clan. So it would matter.”
“I’ll work on it.”
“We can order up matching T-shirts, but in the meantime.” Riley paused to grab another slice. “Pretty sure Nerezza’s feeling a little better.”
“She came at you.” Sasha jerked in her chair. “I didn’t feel—”
“Not directly,” Riley interrupted. “She sent scouts. Ravens. I took out a few of them.”
“You killed birds?” Annika, clearly distressed, laid a hand on her heart.
“Birds don’t turn to ash when you put a bullet in them. These did.”
“Weregirl recognized them for other.” When Riley sneered at him, Doyle just smiled. “Apparently the wolf knows a raven from a minion.”
“Scout,” Riley corrected. “Not that they wouldn’t have clawed our eyes out given the chance, but they were weak—which hopefully translates to her still being weak.”
“But she knows where we are,” Sawyer put in.
“I’d say she does. Not ready to do much about it, but she knows we’re here.”
“And when she’s ready,” Bran said, “so will we be. A clan, a coat of arms, and for my part, a shield. When the time comes, we’ll fight fire with fire.”
“And firepower. Did some scouting of my own,” Sawyer told them. “My take is rather than in the towers, outside on the—let’s have fun and call them battlements—makes a better position for the long-range rifles. You don’t have the cover, but you’d have a three-sixty, and when whatever she sends gets within, say, twenty yards, you’d get cover. Plenty of time for it.”
“That’s good thinking. I’d like to check it out, too.”
“I already have,” Doyle said to Riley. “Sawyer’s right. It’s a better position to target on land, sky, sea.”
Riley considered. “Bran, you know how to do those flying balls for Anni and her Wonder Woman deal?”
“I do, and yes, that’s also good thinking. I can give you targets—land, sea, air.”
“Very cool. We can try it out tonight, after we finish here.”
“I would clean up.” Annika sent an imploring look around the table. “I don’t like the sound the guns make. I would stay here, clean up.”
“That’s okay.” Sawyer gave her hand a squeeze under the table.
“We dive tomorrow.” Wanting to make Annika smile again, Riley changed the subject to something her friend liked. “We should be ready to drive out by eight thirty, so we can pick up the boat, the equipment. Or a couple of us go to get the boat, pilot it back here, and Sawyer travels the rest of you down to it. We’ll keep the boat here for the duration, just have to deal with getting the tanks refilled as we need them.”
“More efficient.” Sawyer circled a finger as he ate. “Riley and Doyle—best at piloting—go for the boat. When we spot you coming back, I’ll get the rest of us on board.”
“Can do. Eight thirty,” Riley said to Doyle, who just nodded.
• • •
They went up, leaving Annika to deal with the debris, and outside to look over the crenelated wall into the coming twilight.
“Days are longer—calendar and geography,” Riley said. “She likes the dark, but she may hit more often in daylight. It’s the last round, and she lost the first two.”
“Day or night, we’ll knock them back.” Ready, Sawyer loaded a rifle. “Give me a target, at least fifty yards out.”
“Where would you like it?” Bran asked.
“Surprise me.”
Obliging, Bran sent a globe into the air, out above the sea. Sawyer shifted his stance, fired, struck it dead center.
“Figures.” Riley lifted the second rifle. “Give me one.”
This one Bran sent high into the north. Riley took it down.
“Okay, let’s make it a hundred yards, multiple targets. You game?” Sawyer asked Riley.
“I invented the game. Go.”
After the barrage of fire, Riley lowered her weapon. “You don’t miss, cowboy.”
“You didn’t either.”
“I only nicked a couple of them. You hit dead-on, every one. More practice for me. You need to try it.” Riley offered the gun to Sasha.
“I don’t know how I can shoot what I can barely see.”
“Bran’s going to bring it in for you. Start at twenty yards, Bran, straight ahead over the water.”
Doyle stepped behind Sasha. “It’ll recoil, so you need to go with that.” He adjusted her stance, put his hands over hers. “Use the sight, hold it steady. Do you have it?”
“Well, I can see it, in the cross—the crosshairs.”
“Steady,” he said again. “Don’t jerk when you pull the trigger. You want it smooth, building the pressure, like drawing a line. Keep drawing it even after you fire. A slow pull, all the way. Take a breath, hold it, fire.”
She did as
he told her, let out an embarrassing squeal when the kick shoved her back against him. “Sorry. And I completely missed.”
“You pulled up and to the right,” Riley told her.
“Steady,” Doyle repeated. “Try again.”
She didn’t squeal this time, but hissed. And by the third time she just dinged the bottom of the globe.
“It won’t be your primary weapon,” Doyle began.
“Thank God.” Happy to relinquish it, she passed it to Doyle.
“But you’ll learn how to handle it, clean it, load it, and use it with accuracy.”
“All right.” She rolled her aggravated shoulder. “I’ll learn.”
“And you.” Doyle gestured to Bran. “Not even close to your primary weapon.”
“And still,” Bran agreed.
They spent twenty minutes destroying target globes before stowing the weapons.
“I’m going to take Anni down, so she can swim. It’ll smooth her out after all the gunfire.”
“Dawn, as usual,” Doyle reminded Sawyer.
“Not likely to forget.”
“I’ve got another hour’s work in me,” Bran decided.
“And I’ll start working on that coat of arms.”
Riley closed the outside door as the others filed out. Doyle stowed the rifles.
“We’ll take my bike tomorrow.”
“Fine with me. With Sawyer bringing everybody to us, we should be able to start diving around nine thirty. Annika’s right about the water temp, so we’ll have to limit underwater time. Maybe do a couple of thirty-minute dives tomorrow, get acclimated.”
Since he made no move to leave, she studied him. “Have you ever dived in the North Atlantic?”
“A few times.”
“You’re not going to tell me you were a Navy SEAL, are you?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Seriously?” A dozen questions popped into her mind, but she shook her head.
“Five years. Any longer than that with one group is risky.”
“I can see that. But right now, we’re not just a group, and we already know who you are. It should make things easier for you.”
“It doesn’t.”
When he walked out on that, Riley let out a sigh. “It should,” she murmured.
• • •
In the morning, after a sweaty hour under Doyle’s training whip, a hot breakfast where they refined and confirmed the diving plan, Riley pulled on a battered leather jacket. As a hopeful sun had broken through the earlier gloom and drizzle, she pushed on her sunglasses.
She had her tank suit for diving under her sweatshirt and cargoes, her gun on her hip under the jacket, and her cell phone secured in the inside pocket.
And considered herself good to go.
She’d been quick, and walked outside at eight twenty-seven. She couldn’t say, exactly, why it irritated her that Doyle waited beside his bike.
He held out a black helmet with a small emblem of the dragon that flew over the side of the bike.
“Why do you even have this?” she wondered. “A fractured skull wouldn’t hold you back for long.”
“It’s the law in a lot of places, and you make fewer ripples if you follow local laws. And a fractured skull wouldn’t kill me, but it fucking hurts.”
She strapped on the helmet. “Haven’t had the experience, but I bet.”
He swung on the bike. “Navigate.”
“You could just let me drive.”
“No. Lay out the route.”
“South on the coast road toward Spanish Point. Should be a sign about a half kilometer this side for Donahue’s Diving. Follow that down to the beach. I’m licensed,” she added, swinging on behind him.
“Nobody drives my bike.”
He kicked it to life. The dragon roar of bikes had always appealed to her, as had the sensation of speed and the freedom of blasting down the road open to the wind.
It all appealed less when riding pillion.
Still, his bike, his rules.
She set her hands on his hips, and imagined she was driving.
Down the bumpy lane, around the curves where Bran had let the hedgerows of fuchsia rise to form borders, and sassy wildflowers poked up to edge the dirt track. Around and beyond the forest where the track turned onto pavement.
While she enjoyed the speed and power, the smell of green still damp from the morning shower, she kept a sharp eye out for any ravens—for anything that struck her as off.
No need for conversation with the roar and buffeting wind, and no need to direct as Doyle wound them to the coast road. She imagined he’d made the journey on horseback or cart more than once.
Had he played on the beach as a boy, splashed in the waves, shouted out laughing as the chilly water rolled over him? Sailed out in a currach, fished the seas?
She could imagine it, she could see him—a tall boy with long dark hair, eyes green like the hills, running over shale and sand, through the shallows with his siblings as boys had and would.
A good life, she thought as she leaned with him into a turn.
She shifted a little, looked out over the water, a rough and ready blue with tinges of green. Gulls swooped, white or gray, and farther out she saw the roll of a white fishing boat.
He slowed through villages decked with flowers, slapped the gas again once they moved beyond.
She tapped his shoulder, pointed when she spotted the little sign up ahead. He only nodded, then slowed into the turn.
The wind kicked harder now, and brisker as they took the narrow ribbon of road down. She smelled the sea, cool and briny, and the roses from the garden of a cottage, the smoke from a chimney of another.
Chickens, she thought. Though she couldn’t see or hear them, the scent of their feathers tickled her nose. She smelled the dog before it ran out and along a tumbling stone wall to watch them.
She tapped Doyle’s shoulder again when she saw the blue building with the long pier. She spotted the dive boat, a fishing boat, and a sweet little cabin cruiser with a man on deck patiently polishing its brightwork.
Doyle pulled up beside a pair of trucks and a compact, cut the engine.
“I’ve got this,” she said, slid off the bike, and strolled toward the boat where the man stopped, put his hands on his hips.
Her deal, Doyle thought, and walked over the shale to the thin strip of dark gold sand.
It would be here, wouldn’t it? he thought. Fate’s quick poke in the ribs. Here, where he’d come as a boy—of nine or ten, if memory served. A cousin had lived nearby. Christ, what was the name? Ronan, yes, Ronan had been the boy about his age, son of his father’s sister. And they’d come to visit, barely a hard stone’s throw from this spot.
His two sisters nearest his age chasing birds. The brother who came after them splashing in the shallows while a younger sister clung shyly to his mother’s skirts. His young, doomed brother barely toddling. Another babe—though he hadn’t known it then—in his mother’s belly.
All there, his mother and father, his grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins.
They’d stayed three days, fishing, feasting, playing music, and dancing late into the night. And he and Ronan had plied through the water like seals.
The following winter his aunt whose name escaped him died in childbirth. His father had wept.
Death unmans us all, Doyle thought.
Riley stepped over to him. “You’ve been here before.”
“Yes.”
“With your family?”
“Yes. Did you make the deal?”
She studied him a moment longer, then nodded. “Done. We can load the equipment.”
They didn’t speak again, or only of practicalities as along with Donahue they carted tanks, wet suits, equipment.
Riley addressed her conversation to Donahue, some talk, Doyle realized, of the dives a mutual acquaintance had taken a few years earlier.
When Donahue asked about the motorcycle, Riley just s
miled and told him someone would pick it up later. And they’d be back to refill the tanks when needed.
Since she’d made the deal, she took the wheelhouse, eased the boat away from the dock with a wave to Donahue, already heading back to his brightwork.
“Making some small talk also causes fewer ripples,” she pointed out.
“You were doing enough for both of us. It’s a good boat.”
“The friend we small talked about is a marine biologist, and he’s partnered with a marine anthropologist. So Donahue came highly recommended. The anthro’s also a lycan. The daughter of a friend of my mother’s.”
“Small world.”
“Situationally.”
It was a good boat, and she knew how to handle it. She headed north, kept within sight of the coast until she spotted a cove.
“A good spot,” she called out, “for dropping four people out of the air.”
She navigated in, using the shelter of the cliff face for cover, then pulled out her phone.
“Latitude and longitude for Sawyer. I’ve got an app for that. You’d better come up here so somebody doesn’t splat on top of you.”
He moved up with her while she found the coordinates.
She still smelled of the forest, he noted, if the forest grew out of the sea.
“Hey, Sawyer, we’re about halfway between here and there.” She read off the coordinates. “Same type of RIB we’ve been using. Yeah, you got that. We’re in the wheelhouse, nosed into a cove, bow toward the cliff, so you’ve got the rest of the boat. Don’t miss,” she added, then pocketed the phone.
“They’ll be a minute. You know, given my bloodline and line of work, I’ve always been open to, we’ll say, the unusual. But up until recently I wouldn’t have seen myself hanging out waiting for four pals to pop out of thin air.”
“A small and fluid world.”
“Fluid works.”
Water lapped and rocked against the boat, and Doyle—who could go weeks happily speaking to no one—found himself restless with the silence.
“Do lycans tend to go into science?”
“I wouldn’t say so. I know teachers, artists, business types, chefs, lazy asses, politicians—”
“Politicians.”
“Yeah.” Now she smiled. “We’ve had a few in Congress, Parliament. There was this guy about twenty, twenty-five years ago I heard about who had higher ambitions. Leader of the Free World ambitions, but the council strongly discouraged him. You go for that, people start digging pretty deep. Better not to