Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series Book 3)

by Cindy Brandner

  “I’m sorry, the knife slipped,” the Reverend said, his smile stating that it had been anything but a mistake. David merely clutched his hand around the blood and pain and said nothing. He signed his name to the covenant and left the requisite blood beside it. Nauseated by the pain and the insanity of what these men had just pledged themselves to, he felt as if time had shifted, and it was hundreds of years ago, with war bristling on the borders, and the land soon to be washed in blood. Only it would be guns and bombs rather than swords and the hangman’s noose that made it flow. He felt very small and ineffectual in the face of such hatred.

  Lenny was standing beside him, grinning that horrible death’s head grin of his.

  “Hurt, Davey-boy?”

  “Not a bit,” David said, though his hand ached as if it had been jointed neatly as a Christmas ham. His arm was slick with blood up to the elbow already.

  “You can go now,” the Reverend said, his voice so cold it was like ice spreading out geometrically along every nerve ending in David’s body.

  Their eyes held and David did not blink, but nor did the Reverend. For a moment, the man let him see what lay behind the façade of his preaching, his rhetoric, his pale, cool demeanor.

  David turned and left, knowing the man watched him until he was out of sight. His gaze was like a shiv, sharp and cold in David’s spine.

  He caught his breath on the pain in his hand as he walked out of the building and up the road. He was out in the cold in more ways than one. It had never been in his mandate to get involved in quite this manner. He was under no direct orders, and was largely considered off the grid. There would be no backup, no one who knew where he was or where to look if he disappeared entirely off the face of the planet. He couldn’t even tell the people dearest to him in the world, for fear of involving them and bringing a rain of fire down on their heads along with his own. He had long known it, had left a letter in Pamela’s keeping, to be delivered to the small grey farmhouse at the end of the crooked lane if he should someday go missing, though he had never felt the possibility of it as viscerally as he did this moment.

  He recalled a long ago conversation with James Kirkpatrick. The man had fixed him with that light-spilling gaze over the top of a tumbler of whiskey.

  “All spies are whores, David. It’s just the method that varies. Only you can decide when you’re in danger of losing your soul to it. Only you can decide when the price becomes too high.”

  David stopped at the verge of a laneway, and looked up into the sky. The night was so very big, the sky dark as Hell’s own basement. His day of reckoning was here, and he thought perhaps the price was, indeed, too high.

  Chapter Seventy-four

  September 1975

  A History of Ashes

  The call came in the night, one of those three o’clock in the morning phone calls where one’s heart leaped directly into one’s throat at the thought of what a ringing phone could portend at such an hour.

  Casey shot out of the bed with the reflexes of a father who dreads his small tyrannical daughter awakening. Inevitably, as he ran down the stairs to the kitchen where the telephone pealed on shrilly, another sort of call, equally piercing entered the fray. Pamela, adrenaline coursing like thoroughbred racehorses through her system, got up and fetched her small, angry daughter from her crib.

  Casey didn’t return until Isabelle had been changed, and had been nursed enough to alter her furious cries to soft coos. Pamela burped her, rocking her back to sleep, her small downy head on her mother’s shoulder. Casey had banked the fire in the bedroom’s hearth before they had gone to sleep, but Pamela felt a terrible chill nevertheless.

  The look on Casey’s face did little for the adrenaline-charged equines in her blood.

  “What—what is it?” she asked, through lips that were stiff with fear. Isabelle was squirming slightly, sensing her disquiet.

  “It’s the distillery—there’s a fire. Apparently it started a few hours ago, or so they think as it’s well caught. I’m so sorry, Pamela.”

  The next hour was a blur. Casey called Gert and she arrived within minutes to watch over the children.

  They saw the glow of the fire on the horizon long before they reached the distillery site. Pamela felt the ball of ice in her intestines grow larger. The fire had to be huge to cause that sort of light in the sky.

  When they arrived, Pamela quickly saw it was even worse than she had feared. Four hundred years of Kirkpatrick history was already well on its way to becoming no more than a very large pile of ashes. She could not even begin to think of all the people whose well-being depended on the distillery every day.

  The fire was enormous, and too dangerous for anyone to get close enough to fight it effectively. The worst was still to come though.

  “It’s going to hit the washbacks and the stills and when it does the whole place will explode,” she said, fighting back tears. “There’s no way to stop it.”

  Casey did not reply because there was nothing to say. A force of nature this big had an inevitability about it that made one stand back in equal parts awe and horror. They stood on a hillside above the distillery, a safe enough distance, but they were able to feel the terrific heat that rent the night in two.

  The explosion came only minutes later and it sent out a roar that echoed off the surrounding hills, shooting up a ball of flame that looked like a star exploding, ready to pull the universe into the vacuum it would leave behind. A series of smaller explosions followed, like a string of fireworks streaking the air with jets of gold and vermilion.

  The outlines of the distillery, the oak beams and river stone, stood out in relief against the flames. It was, Pamela thought, a scene of utter beauty and utter destruction.

  “I’m goin’ to go down an’ see what’s what,” Casey said. “It’ll start to die back now that the stills an’ washbacks have exploded.”

  She clutched at his hand, grateful for the warmth of his skin. Her own was cold and numb.

  “Just be careful,” she said.

  She sat there for a long time on the hillside, as the night faded behind the flames and dawn rose. Dew was thick in the grass while smoke choked the air. Autumn was in the dawn, in the chill shadows that didn’t rise until later in the morning, in the feel of winter reaching out with steely fingers. She felt stunned, as though someone had hit her hard with a large object and left her bruised and unable to think coherently. She had half expected Philip to show up and gloat. Then again, he might wish to keep himself as distant as possible from a conflagration that he likely had a hand in setting.

  Though Jamie’s empire was far flung, the distillery was the root and soul of it, the beginning and the legacy that had been handed down generation after generation. Under the harsh reek of the smoke, she could smell the melting copper of the vats and the heady burn of the grain itself, the vapor of the angel’s ether rising in the air.

  The fire died back slowly, leaving only a frail skeleton behind in the form of structural beams. The stones had cracked in the enormous heat and were scattered within the ruin and the surrounding yards.

  She stood, still numb, but knowing she had to go down and speak to the firemen now that it was safe to approach, and start to make a series of very difficult decisions.

  Casey was cresting the hill, the morning sun rising behind him, crimson through the ash that clogged the air. His own face was streaked with cinders, eyes wells of exhaustion.

  “Jewel, I’ve a wee bit of bad news.”

  “The distillery is gone. It can’t get any worse.”

  “Oh, aye, it can,” Casey said grimly. “There’s a body inside.”

  “Are ye feelin’ any better?” Casey asked from the bedroom doorway. Pamela removed the cold cloth from her eyes and looked at him. It was several hours since he had delivered the news about the dead body. Following upon that they h
ad spent three hours in the police station, trying to answer questions for which they had no answers. Pamela had not voiced her suspicions, because she knew there would be neither proof nor trail leading to the guilty party. He was too careful and calculating for that. She had little doubt that he, the man who had engineered this disaster, would know the identity of the mysterious corpse which had kept them at the police station so long.

  She patted the bed beside her, indicating that Casey should come sit.

  “Is Isabelle awake?” she asked, for she had nursed the baby—outraged at the long delay between meals—before lying down, and she had no idea how much time had passed as she drifted in and out of sleep.

  “No, she’s sleepin’ fine in her cradle. Conor’s playin’ in the kitchen an’ Gert an’ Owen are still here, so don’t be after worryin’ yerself over the wee ones, darlin’.”

  His face was hollowed out with worry and exhaustion, and though he was freshly washed, she could still smell smoke on him. She felt as if it was soaked into her very pores, and that she would smell the phantom of this fire for years to come.

  “Can ye manage a bit more in the way of bad news then?”

  “Aye,” she said dryly. “I can manage.”

  “The police have called an’ they think they’ve maybe identified the body.”

  The tone of his voice warned her.

  “Who?”

  “Jamie’s uncle.”

  “Oh, Christ,” she said and sat up. For a moment black spots danced in front of her eyes and she thought she might faint but Casey’s hand on her back shored her up.

  “How did they identify him?”

  “There was a ring on the corpse. It was melted down a bit, but after they had a good look at it, they made out the initials P.K. There was a sapphire in it, they said.”

  There was no doubt then, for that was Philip’s ring.

  “Who can have done this, Casey? With all the legal wrangling Robert and I have been doing, it’s going to look very bad for us.”

  “I would think ye need look no further than the man’s partners in crime, if ye wish to know who killed him. But that,” Casey said, with a tone of finality, “is for the police to solve, not you. This has gotten, if ye’ll pardon the pun, far too hot a situation for ye to be dealin’ with. It’s time to back off an’ reassess, Pamela. Whatever Jamie might want an’ however much the distillery meant to him, he would not want ye placin’ yerself in harm’s way an’ nor do I.”

  She closed her eyes. She was, admittedly, exhausted and at the limits of what she felt she could effectively do. The loss of the distillery was a blow she had not expected and felt unable to absorb just yet. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the smoking skeleton that was all that remained of the four hundred year old building.

  She could almost hear Jamie’s voice in her ear telling her not to worry, that they would rebuild. Only it wasn’t they or we or us. It was herself, making decision after decision that was affecting the long and storied history of Jamie’s empire. Every step felt like she was further out on a high wire, without a net beneath her feet.

  “Robert is downstairs havin’ a tea with Owen. Will ye come down to see him or will I send him up?”

  “I’ll come down,” she said grimly. “Just give me a minute to change and make myself decent.”

  Casey gave her a worried look, and she summoned up a watery smile. He raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced, before taking himself back downstairs.

  She had not liked Jamie’s uncle in the least, but she had not wished the man dead. It took this game to a new level altogether, one at which she did not wish to play. It told her without doubt that the other side was willing to kill to win. Though she couldn’t see what killing Philip accomplished for Lucien, she knew his hand was the one upon the sword hilt.

  She was also keenly aware that the game was too far gone to take herself out of play. Now it was simply a matter of the last few moves and hoping they were the ones that would bring the whole thing to an end.

  Chapter Seventy-five

  September 1975

  Day of Reckoning

  It was cold, the grass thick with dew, fog still hanging in great sheets like diaphanous laundry that one could not escape. The men crept forward in utter silence, dew spangling their beards and hair, coating their faces fine as gossamer. Spiderwebs lay in the grass in small patches too. Dusted with the diamonds of dew and frosted ever so slightly, they were a note of beauty in this chill aching morning. David licked the water from his own lips, grateful for the cold of it. His throat was dry and his head thick with foreboding. Around them, the trees were dripping with the weight of water, soft thuds against the leaf-thick loam.

  It was a daft plan. He noted with no small cynicism that the man who had authored it was rather conspicuous by his absence today. He thought perhaps they did not understand the nature of Noah Murray and had made the mistake of thinking him like all other Republicans—capable of bleeding and dying. David, having a somewhat better knowledge of the man, tended to think he was half supernatural with his ability to sniff the wind and know what was coming and to avoid capture both of the legal and illegal sort.

  They fanned out from the trees into the open now, where the spine tingled with the lack of cover. David crouched low, the gun a natural part of his body, an extension of flesh into steel. He moved lightly on his feet, back and forth, so that anyone watching could not pinpoint him too easily in their sights. However, one would have to be supernatural to see through this bloody dripping fog. The man next to him was swallowed whole and swiftly into the fog’s belly as if it were a living thing with an appetite so voracious it did not take the time to chew.

  His hand thrummed with pain, finger stiff on the trigger. He hoped to hell he could move it when the time came. The cut had not been healing well and had been recently cut open again and properly debrided. The memory of that was enough still to make him feel sick. Darren had done it, after insisting on unwrapping the bandages to see how bad the injury was. He had tied the hand to the table and told him to look away. Being that the man was a vet (but no slouch in the treatment of humans either) David had done as he was told—and had thrown up on the well-scrubbed floor a few minutes later. That had been before the stitching, for which Darren had given him a local. David had wishfully mentioned tranquilizers and got the rise of a pale brown brow. He had felt the stitches, as Darren had to do two levels of them in order to properly close the flesh over tendon and bone. He was on enough antibiotics now to kill a bloody horse but took them meekly enough. When it came to the authority over bodily woes, the British super spy bowed before the wisdom of the Irish vet.

  A soft bird call reached him on the wind, breaking into his ruminations. But it was no ordinary bird unless the bird was featherless and distinctly humanoid in shape. He knew a signal when he heard one. Three high notes and one low. He stopped for a second, confused. Understanding came swift and deadly, for the final note had only begun to die away when the fog was ripped to shreds by the insect whine of bullets.

  David hit the ground, the dew soaking him instantly. He tried to discern where the bullets were coming from—direction, how many guns, how many were automatic fire—but it was useless. The mayhem was too great. He could feel them coming though, many men walking through the fog with purpose and the ability to see their blind enemy. He knew this was not so, but felt it nevertheless. He raised his own gun and shot blind, using senses other than sight. He could do that, put his ‘feelers’ out into the field ahead, judging by sound and echo where the barrage was coming from. What his senses told him was not a story designed to comfort. There were large numbers of men with automatic guns simply spraying the ground and air ahead of them.

  It became clear that Noah Murray had been waiting for them, biding his time, knowing that they were coming and thus giving him the advantage of being entirely prepared. Noa
h Murray would not show mercy. He would kill every last one of them. They would be fortunate if they weren’t tortured for several days before receiving the merciful bullet to the back of the head. What this meant was that there was a traitor within their own group, one beyond himself.

  David had been in firefights before and had long known the way a person’s insides shrank tight to his bones as if seeking refuge from harm. He knew fear and all its vagaries well but he had never known a day like this one. Death sat upon his tongue, and it tasted like ink spilled in blood—sour galls and copper and something darker, like fate.

  It was hard to think, to formulate a plan, to know how to get out when bullets razed the air like hail, leaving molten trails near ears and shoulders and all too fragile organs. But he knew he had to think and act, for that was his job.

  In his mind, he saw the land from above, the location of the buildings, the drainage channel, the stone walls that served as fencing for the cattle and the approximate distance to the ditch and the edge of the forest.

  He started to crawl backwards toward the former, tendrils of fog still clinging to him, leaving drops of water in his hair, trickling down his collar and chilling him to the core. The ground was soggy, the morning not warm enough to dry last night’s hard rain.

  It was an eternity to get to the ditch, crawling in a zigzag pattern being rather difficult yet it was too risky to stand. He found the ditch by falling into it, hitting his back on the far side with a distinctive whomph that winded him.

  There were several men in the ditch already. He didn’t even have time to catch his breath before Lenny went on the attack.

  “Fuckers knew we were here—how the fuck did they know?” Lenny asked, and though the question seemed general, David felt the man’s eyes boring a hole into the side of his face.