The Dark Beloved
Page 21
On the bridge, the dullahan remained stationary against the emerging dawn, its hood pushed back and the flies gradually settling back into their usual pattern, circling the raw stump of its neck. The creature the zookeeper had referred to as ‘the sluagh’ stepped from the dullahan’s arm onto the parapet, where it stood shuffling from one clawed foot to the other.
The boat remained very still. The robin crouched. No sound but the drip, drip, drip of the tainted water down the walls and the click of the leathery creature’s claws on the stone parapet. Aoife’s mind spun, turning over ways of escape. It was a serious setback that Dorocha was away – she was sure that wherever Dorocha was, there the demon and Shay would be – but at least it meant that this was the perfect time to take Carla to the queen’s tower. Perhaps if they slipped into the moat and swam under water . . . If it was only her, she would risk it, but Carla was human and slower – and if the dullahan spotted her, it might call her name, and then Carla would die. Maybe she could launch a surprise attack on the two creatures guarding the bridge. But it might not be just the pair of them on guard. The other dullahans were unlikely to have strayed far from their own heads.
Beneath her knees, the boat trembled, and edged forward a little. With a jolt of panic, she gripped both sides, shouting at it angrily in her mind, Hold still! Up on the bridge, the bird-like creature’s head snapped round, staring straight at their hiding place. The robin in the hawthorn bush crouched lower. The boat paused . . . then edged out another centimetre. Behind her, Carla nervously sucked in her breath. Aoife screamed again silently: Hold still! Hold still! On the bridge, the creature lifted its wings away from its sides; the beaked head thrust forwards; it rose slightly on its clawed toes.
The robin broke cover, streaming in a bolt of red and brown towards the far bank. Instantly the sluagh lost interest in the emerging cooshee head and sprang after the tiny bird with an ear-piercing howl of greed. At the same moment the craft darted from its hiding place and headed straight for the bridge, shooting between the thick supporting columns and out again on the other side, racing down the centre of the water, the cooshee’s head straining forwards.
Clinging to the cooshee’s neck, Aoife looked back in terror to see if they were being followed. Carla was hunched down between the seats, moaning with fear. The robin was still flying, a tiny fluttering thing against the pale dawn sky; just above it, the sluagh was turning in a slow black-winged spiral, closing steadily on the small struggling dot. Then, just before the inevitable kill, a second predator came swooping down from the lavender sky – faster than the sluagh and every bit as deadly to its prey: a golden eagle, brilliant as metal in the first rays of dawn.
The sluagh, realizing it was about to be robbed of its victim, folded back its wings and dropped. Too late – the eagle shot past and, with a fierce cry of triumph, seized the robin in its claw and was gone, back up into the sunlit heavens with its kill.
Carla sobbed, and Aoife’s throat tightened with sorrow.
The bridge was getting smaller in the distance. The dullahan was slowly turning in their direction. The sluagh had started after the eagle, but that mighty predator was now a distant streak of gold, and the hideous winged creature suddenly spotted the fleeing boat below, and with thumping strokes of its wings began descending, clawed hands and feet outstretched.
Carla shrieked in despair, arms over her head.
The boat sped on round the corner of the pyramid, and they were out of sight – but not for long. The slow whump of leathery wings was growing steadily louder; the creature’s shadow stretched from round the corner, a long black finger on the crimson water. Aoife raised her hands, feeling the icy power rush into them . . .
The boat turned sharp left, heading at full speed for the city walls and, as Carla screamed again . . . rushed straight on. What had seemed like a solid wall had been a pink and white curtain of real flowers, perfectly camouflaged against the rose-quartz carvings. Now they were travelling at great speed down a narrow canal between high walls; seconds later, the faint dawn light was left behind and they continued racing forwards in absolute darkness, then took another abrupt left. There followed a long series of sickening corners, before the craft stopped so suddenly that Aoife would have been hurled headfirst into the water had she not had her arms wrapped around the cooshee’s neck.
Still clinging to the prow, she gasped over her shoulder into the impenetrable dark, ‘Carla? Are you all right?’
After a few alarming seconds of silence Carla finally replied, her voice hoarse and trembling with fear: ‘Aoife, what was that thing?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen one before. Are you all right?’
‘I think so . . . Did we get away before it saw us?’
‘We’re safe here for the minute, probably.’ Aoife peered intently around into the black, waiting for her changeling eyes to pick up any drop of light. The darkness remained absolute in most directions. But slowly she began to make out fine lines of glimmer, several metres above her head – pale and ghostly scratches on the surface of the dark.
Carla was whispering, ‘Where are we? I can’t see a thing . . .’
‘Wait a moment.’ The surroundings were increasingly taking shape. There was a narrow wharf, from which stone steps led up into a darkness fractured by the four lines of light, two vertical, two horizontal. ‘There’s a door at the top of some steps.’
‘How can you see that?’
‘Fairy vision.’ A metal ring was set into the mossy stone. She reached out her arm and gripped it, pulling the craft in alongside the steps, then forwards along the wall. When the stern was in line with the ring, she tied the rope to it.
Carla’s voice came again, nervously, ‘What are you doing now?’
‘Tying us up. Wait here – I’m just going to check the lie of the land.’
‘Oh God . . . Don’t leave me.’
‘I won’t. I’ll be back in two seconds.’ Aoife stepped out onto the narrow wharf – slippery with algae under her bare feet – and made her way very softly up the steps. At the top, she put one eye to the thread of light, but all she could see was the light itself. She pushed against the door; it moved, the hair-line fracture widening to a centimetre.
She was looking into a large shadowy cellar, roughly carved out of the same solid crystal as the whole city and lit by a single guttering candle set at the far end of a long counter, which was also made of crystal. At the far end of the cellar, a street door was bolted and barred several times across. A man in a dirty white linen apron, which was nearly pulled up to his armpits, and sporting a bushy beard the colour of marmalade, was sweeping the white stone floor with a besom, stirring up a great cloud of sand and dust. He was nearer seven foot tall than six – and with shoulders a good metre wide.
Aoife drew the door softly closed, and descended the steps again.
In the dark, Carla sounded scared. ‘Is that still you?’
‘It is.’
‘I can’t see a thing. What’s happening?’
To get closer to her, Aoife sat for a moment on the edge of the wharf, her feet in the warm water. ‘The boat brought us where Mícheál would have gone if he hadn’t died . . . I mean, if he wasn’t being transformed. It’s the smugglers’ bar, where they sell the human food. There’s only one man in there right now, but he’s a big one and I don’t know what he’s going to make of us walking in by his back door and asking to go out the front.’
‘Well, we can’t just sit here in the dark for the rest of our lives. And we have to tell someone the poor man is dead, God rest his soul, and where he’s buried. And give them the rest of his stuff.’
Aoife stirred her feet slowly in the water, thinking about what Mícheál Costello had told her. He was sure the other smugglers called him ‘soft’ behind his back. In the darkness, his voice seemed to whisper in her ear: They’d not be overly pleased with me for not killing you in the first place. No one’s supposed to know about the secret ways but us smugglers.
Carla said with heavy sarcasm, ‘Ha ha. Not.’
Aoife was thrown. ‘What? No, I’m serious. I don’t know how he’s going to react, and I’m not putting you in danger. If there’s a problem, I can deal with it, and then I’ll come back and get you.’
‘No, Aoife. There is absolutely no way I’m going to sit out here in the pitch black not knowing what’s happening to you in there. What if you don’t come back? What then? Do I look after myself? How much chance do I have of surviving in this world without you? I’d be like that robin, eaten alive.’
A brief silence fell between them.
Carla, clearly – like Aoife – thinking of the robin, murmured quietly, ‘Oh, the poor little thing. Do you think . . . ?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ Aoife was picturing in her mind’s eye that struggling dot against the sky – and she felt an overwhelming wave of grief for its tiny, transient life. The way things had happened – the robin taking flight just as the cooshee boat made a bid for freedom . . . It really was almost as if the bird had sacrificed itself for them. Keeping the sluagh occupied just long enough for her and Carla to escape. Could it have been Donal?
If it was, he had just saved her life. A third time.
‘What’s that?’ Carla’s whisper was terrified. ‘I can hear something – can you see anything?’
Heart thumping in response to her friend’s burst of fear, Aoife peered back the way the boat had come. She could see nothing but darkness – no distant glimmer of light. There were sounds, but not frightening sounds; natural sounds. Water rippling up against the walls, and distant splashes: probably water rats. The wood of the boat, creaking.
And yet a slight misgiving caught her heart, and it seemed to her that Carla was right. Supposing the sluagh had caught a glimpse of where they’d gone – and returned to tell its master? Perhaps Carla shouldn’t be left out here in the dark, alone.
‘Come on then – take my hand and I’ll help you out. But listen to me – if this guy turns nasty, I’m going to have to do something, and I want you to keep out of the way. And then, as soon as we’re through here, we’re going to get you home.’
CHAPTER SIX
The huge man with the marmalade beard was still sweeping, but now on the far side of the long bar. Three fresh candles were burning on the counter now, with long lilac flames. The shelves behind him were stacked with orange clay cups and a few cans of own-brand lemonade which glinted in the lavender light. At the creak of the river door opening, he turned with a grunt of welcome – but on seeing the two girls in their short black dresses, he dropped his broom with a shocked clatter, and his green eyes, half buried in his hairy flesh, flashed diamond-hard with anger.
Aoife became suddenly, oddly conscious of what she must look like – her short black dress and cardigan muddy and torn; bare feet; her red-gold hair in a tangled mess. Carla was in no better state; her expensive make-up blotched with tears and panic; her beautifully cut hair beginning to lose its shape. Yet it wasn’t her the man was staring at as if she were an unwelcome and disgusting sight – it was only Aoife. The next moment, the lower part of his beard began quivering wildly – somewhere inside it his lips were moving – and a slow thunderous roar began to emerge through the thicket of orange: ‘Yooouuu . . .’
Carla squealed shrilly. Aoife took a hasty step forwards to place herself between the giant changeling and the human girl, her palms raised. ‘Look, I know we aren’t who you were expecting, but we met a friend of yours on the way here, a very brave man called Mícheál Costello . . .’
Now the giant was staring at her with astonishment, before taking his whole weight on one massive hand and springing bodily over the counter. This time Carla shrieked aloud and icy power rushed into Aoife’s blood – but rather than throwing himself upon them, the man only stood wiping his fingers on the dirty white apron, and then on his spiky orange hair, after which he checked his palms for cleanliness and marched forwards, holding out his huge hand and bellowing: ‘Well, the last time I saw your majesty you were flying off on some mad ride with a strange boy and there was nothing but mayhem and dullahans after that, and the Beloved left distraught at the altar, and nobody knowing what was going to happen next and the city in darkness all night, and no customers, which is bad for business, and I’ll be straight with you, your majesty, I blamed you for making a mess of it all with your faithless ways, because everything was going along peaceful in this city before your man Dorocha decided to bring back the royalty, and I’m a staunch Republican myself, having been brought up in the War of Independence against the English, who are only mad for their queen and her imperial ways. But if our own Mícheál Costello, who is also a fierce Republican man, sees fit to bring the fairy queen to our secret hideout, then who am I not to say ye’re very welcome?’
It was Aoife’s turn to be absolutely speechless. (Yet why should she be surprised? All Falias had been at that rushed coronation, where the druid had crowned her with a circle of hawthorn and mistletoe. Mícheál alone must have missed it, being on his travels.) Behind her, she could hear Carla squeaking faintly, ‘Oh God, you’re the queen of this place! Oh God, you told me that back in Kilduff. Oh God, that was another thing I didn’t believe. Oh God. Sorry. Adjusting.’
The giant was still standing almost to attention, enormous beard thrust forwards, hand held out.
Recovering herself, Aoife stepped up to take the hand and shook it firmly with both of hers. Looking up into his small green eyes, she said, ‘I don’t feel like a queen and I never knew I was until I was called back to this world, and I’m not even a great believer in royalty myself. My name is Aoife O’Connor, and this is my best friend Carla Heffernan.’
He crushed her fingers heavily, his eyes fixed on hers – while still completely ignoring Carla. The beard trembled again. ‘Welcome, your majesty. Wee Peter is my name.’ He had a Donegal accent – soft but with an undercurrent of fierce pride. So this was the ‘lovely’ man of whom Mícheál had spoken – at least, the man who was lovely if you didn’t touch his ice cream.
Suddenly conscious of the empty tub in Mícheál’s plastic sack, Aoife said quickly, ‘And we won’t get in your way, because we’re only passing through.’
‘That’s grand, your majesty.’ Wee Peter still hadn’t stopped gazing at her face. ‘I believe the Beloved is out of town, but if you only await him in your mother’s tower, he will soon be back to you.’
Despite his initial disgust with her, and his Republican instincts, it seemed to Aoife that he was on her side. Still gripping his mighty hand in both of hers, she said, ‘A demon has stolen the boy I ran away with. I want to find Dorocha, but only because I think that’s where I can find my—’
‘Stop!’ He snatched his hand from hers and held it up palm out, as if to keep the sight of her from his eyes. ‘Don’t be telling me any more! Your business is your own, and I don’t want to know it!’
Her heart sank – she had been so sure of him. ‘But—’
‘No buts! We older changelings have seen too much fighting, between the Great War and 1916 and Independence and the Civil War where brother killed brother. If ye want to fall out with the Beloved, and run off with a strange boy and plunge the whole city into dullahan-infested darkness, ’tis no affair of mine. Let younger changelings decide whose side they’re on in your fight. All I want is peace, and satisfied customers.’ And he strode past her to the river door, and went running heavily down the steps, calling in a voice that echoed up and down the hidden waterways, ‘Big Mícheál! Get yer lazy wee arse out of that boat! We’re down to the own-brand lemonade, I’ve had a run on the Kimberleys, and I’ve a lenanshee-sized grá of my own for chocolate-chip ice cream!’
Aoife threw a quick glanc
e towards the barred street entrance: every lock would spring open under her hands in an instant. ‘Carla, let’s go.’
But there must have been a smugglers’ spell on the door, as there had been on the door to the tomb, because despite her power the bolts would only inch aside a little at a time. And before even one of them had fallen, Wee Peter had come rushing back up into the bar with a furious cry, booting the river door shut behind him. ‘Where is he? What have ye done with him? How is it ye have Big Mícheál’s boat and Big Mícheál’s bag, but ye don’t have the man Big Mícheál hisself?’ He was swinging the heavy plastic sack in one mighty hand, as if he might hurl it at them like a stone from a sling.
Carla was shrinking against the wall, white and rigid with fright. Once more, Aoife stepped in front of her, steeling herself for a fight. ‘I’m sorry for your troubles, but Mícheál was killed by a pooka.’
‘Pooka?’ He lurched through the tables towards them, throwing down the sack, jabbing a finger as big and red as a jumbo sausage. Every visible inch of his skin – nose, forehead – was flushed a brilliant beetroot, in violent contrast to the orange beard. ‘Pooka? That’s a filthy dirty lie! Big Mícheál was a kind-hearted man, but he would never have let hisself be fooled by a pooka. Why, he cut his own grandmother’s throat, sliced her open like a squealing pig from ear to ear, rather than risk being eaten by a little old lady . . .’
Aoife stood her ground, fists by her sides, still holding back her power – reluctant to do serious damage unless necessary. She said in calm and – she hoped – authoritative voice, ‘I know well Mícheál killed his own grandmother, Peter. This pooka came on us as a four-year-girl—’