Seizing the opportunity, Carla rolled out from under Darragh’s grip, sprang to her feet and hurled herself onto the demon’s back, as Killian opened his eyes and begun to scream mindlessly. The pooka shrugged her off, and leaned over him again …
Screaming herself, Carla leaped up from where she’d crashed to the floor and threw herself once more onto the pooka’s back, this time riding it like a cowboy riding a bull, holding it tightly by one of its twisted horns, while with the other hand trying to gouge out its eyes. Enraged, the pooka whirled, sending her flying through the air and crashing into the balcony windows – where she slithered to the floor, winded. The knife was lying near, but she was paralysed – the walls of her lungs glued together – unable to breathe.
The pooka was thundering across the room towards her …
Oh, she was stupid. Stupid. Stupid! Thinking she could fight a monster all by herself. Forgetting she was an ordinary, normal, dull teenage girl, not a brave and powerful fairy queen, like Aoife.
And the pooka was poised above her now – enraged, its massive face filled her vision. Its scarlet eyes blazed fire; its snout yawned, a thick glistening snake of silver drool spiralling down; its tongue-less mouth was crammed top and bottom, as far back as its throat, with thin triangular metallic teeth like a vast cheese grater …
The last scenes Carla would ever see in this life were imprinting themselves rapidly on her brain, as if somehow she could take them with her, wherever she was going. Darragh was on his knees in the doorway, his face distorted in terror. Sinead was standing behind him, hands over her face. Lorcan was hovering beside Sinead, his phone raised high in his hand …
And Killian?
Oh, thank God, Killian was alive! Sitting screaming in the wreckage of his bed …
Carla’s lungs came unstuck at last, and a last sweet breath of air rushed in: ‘Killian!’ she howled, ‘Killian, run!’ as the pooka’s jaws came swooping down – and then paused just above her head, the burning eyes glaring down in annoyance at Carla’s neck.
With a last sob of strength, Carla stretched for the knife, reached up and slashed it across the pooka’s soft, frog-like throat. A tsunami of stinking blood burst out, drenching her in filthy stench, and with a terrible squealing grating shriek, the demon lurched upright, dragging in screeching gasps of air – ‘Aaacchhhhhh! Aaacchhhhhh!’ – not through its mouth but through the gaping wound in its throat that had severed its windpipe – then, flames shooting from its eyes, plunged forwards.
Falling …
Carla rolled aside just in time as the monster crashed over her, out through the balcony doors into the pouring rain. She leaped to her feet, still clutching the knife, and rushed out into the downpour, ready to plunge in the blade over and over again.
No need.
At her feet, the monstrous pooka sprawled and wept, sobbing black bloody tears, trying to crawl away but failing, its huge head butting up against the railing. The heavy Mayo downpour was stripping its bones like acid; its flesh was melting, dripping down through the slatted wooden floor of the balcony in long black gooey strings.
‘Aaacch, aaacch, aaacch …’ it wept.
Filthy evil pooka, oozing to death in the Mayo rainstorm.
(Or poor little girl, weeping for her mother.)
CHAPTER NINE
Carla leaned on the wooden rail, head resting on her forearms, allowing the sweet merciful flood of the Mayo night to strip the foul blood and drool of the pooka from her clothes. It soaked her hair, running coldly down her neck, in under her collar, down her spine, as she waited for her heart to stop pounding, while the rain washed her clean and her legs stopped shaking.
Saved by the charmstone.
A gift from her nan.
Thanks to Ultan, the boy from Falias …
Ultan.
The cogs of Carla’s brain began to turn jerkily again.
Focusing on the next job.
Aoife.
Beside her, the pooka continued to dissolve, ebony bones emerging from melting flesh, then decaying themselves. Voices sounded in the room behind her: loud and confused. Darragh was saying, ‘Killian, are you all right? What was that thing? Where did it go? Jesus Christ, your room is after being destroyed.’
Carla glanced back at the French windows, now smashed off their hinges. A big crowd of teenagers were in the bedroom now, and she could hear more arriving up from the floor below. Sinead, out of sight, was laughing – shrill and uncertain: ‘What the hell …’
And Lorcan was shouting at everyone: ‘Check out this video! It’s brilliant! Aoife freaking out Killian in a gorilla suit! Where did she get to? I want to congratulate her!’
She should slip away now, before anyone came out to find her. She had an urgent mission, and people might have too many questions. And as much as she longed to see Killian before she went, why put herself through the agony? He had shown Carla his true heart that night: not just thoughtless, but actively cruel: My girlfriend is extremely beautiful, which is more than I can say for you.
Bastard.
No wonder the pooka had mistaken him for a dark creature. She was damned if she was going to keep mooning over that boy like some stupid, lovesick eejit.
Have some self-respect, Carla!
Side-stepping the last remains of the demon – draining away through the slatted floor like black spaghetti through a sieve – she headed determinedly down the metal fire escape which Killian’s mother had insisted on having installed in case her darling boy got trapped on the third floor by a fire. Her bike was still in the school yard. If she fetched it and set off to Ultan’s house right now, it would take her at least three hours to get there. Maybe four, because the bike was so rusty. Yet time was on her side, this way round. Less than a week had passed since she’d left Aoife behind – and that was only just over an hour in the Land of the Young. And even if it took her four hours in this world to get to the changeling boy, that would add only a couple of minutes in the other.
She was nearly at the next floor down when she heard his voice calling her from above. ‘Carla?’
She stopped, heart beating almost as hard as when the pooka had towered over her, her hand clutching the freezing wet metal rail. Shivering, and not just from the cold and rain.
‘Carla.’ His feet came clanging down the metal steps.
She turned to face him. (So much for self-respect.)
He stood on the step above her, looming over her, his shirt still half unbuttoned and the rain running down his bare, panting chest. Glaring around him into the dark. ‘Where is she? Where’s Aoife? Where’s she gone?’
Oh, for God’s sake.
To think, for just a moment, she’d imagined he’d come to thank her for saving his life. Some chance of that. Bitterly, she hurried on down the steps, snapping over her shoulder, ‘Christ’s sake, Killian, are you blind? Didn’t you see what happened back there?’
‘Wait!’ His feet clanged after her; he grabbed her by the shoulder, spinning her to face him; he looked hurt and bewildered. ‘Lorcan said Aoife changed into a gorilla suit to scare me. Did you know she was going to do that? Have the two of ye made up with each other without telling me? Because it wasn’t a very good joke …’
Unbelievable.
She recovered her speech. ‘Of course I wasn’t “in” on some stupid bloody joke, you … you … eejit! And that wasn’t even— And I risked— Oh, what’s the point? I haven’t the time for this nonsense.’ Breaking away from him, she raced on angrily down the steps and round the corner of the house.
The little motorbike was still parked at the front, but the pale blue Fiat had gone – Lois must have driven away in a panic earlier, because there were skid marks in the gravel. Instead of heading back across the field, Carla ran as fast as she could down the long drive. It would be quicker to get to the school this way, and it would save risking the bullocks again.
A small engine started up far behind her, and the next moment he was wobbling along beside her on the
motorbike, shouting over the noise, ‘Where are you going?’
She shouted back angrily, ‘To find the real Aoife, if you must know!’
‘Then I’ll give you a lift.’
Aargh. She shouldn’t have said anything about finding Aoife. ‘I don’t want a lift, so go away! Go back to your party!’
He kept on wobbling beside her. ‘You don’t need to be scared. I got this bike for my birthday, and I’ve already driven it all around the garden – it’s easy. Come on, get on.’
She hadn’t even reached the road yet and her breath was already coming in painful gasps. But the cogs of her brain were beginning to turn again. If she had to cycle all the way to Ultan’s, she’d probably die of exhaustion before she even got there.
He wheeled round in front of her, blocking her way to the gate. ‘Come on, Carla. I need to talk to Aoife and find out what the hell she thought she was up to back there.’
She stopped with her hands on hips, panting, chest heaving. ‘Fine. Then bring me to the Glen.’
His eyes widened – a silver flash in the night. ‘The Glen? But that’s miles away. Did she go in Lois’s car?’
‘No, she—’ She caught herself. The truth would take all night, and he wouldn’t believe her anyway. ‘Yes, that’s right, they’ve gone to see a boy.’
‘Gone to see a boy?’ He looked even more disgusted. ‘Don’t tell me Lois’s weird boyfriend has shown up again … Crap.’ The engine had stalled. ‘Hang on.’ He fired it again, twice, and it turned over. ‘OK. Get on. Lois is such a slow driver, we’ll probably catch up with them long before they get there.’
As soon as she’d climbed on, he swung out into the narrow rain-washed road, taking the slippery corner too wide and only just recovering before he hit the opposite wall.
She nearly fell off, grabbing at his shirt.
He shouted crossly over his shoulder, ‘Sit up straight! Hold me round the waist, or you’re going to make me crash!’
Immediately she slipped her arms round him and sat closely against the warmth of his back. He slewed the bike down the hill, skidding wildly in the water flooding across the road – clearly a novice, endangering both their lives. Carla pressed her cheek to his wet shirt and closed her eyes. Heart in her mouth, waiting for the imminent crash. And at the same time, realizing that the stupid embarrassing thing was, if she did die right now – holding him like this – she would die happy.
Carla, you brain-dead fool.
Amazingly, they made it to the bottom of the hill in one piece. Killian turned more smoothly across the square, gaining confidence and skill. Forking left at the pub, he headed on up to the black and empty bog as the rain hissed down on the heather all around them. The engine strained as they puttered up over the gap between the mountain. Then down the other side, too fast. Carla tightened her arms round his waist, secretly drinking in the physical nearness of him. Fantasizing that they were boyfriend and girlfriend again.
Oh, Killian …
The rain had stopped, and stars were coming out, shedding very little light. The ocean was ahead of them, an invisible roar in the dark. He took a wide turn onto the coast road, narrowly missing the drop on the far side, and then – only a short way further on – drew into a small car park beside a solitary single-storey building. He turned the bike to face the ocean; killed the engine, kicked down the stand, and jumped off.
Carla also climbed off, shivering. ‘Why are we stopping here?’ (She fantasized him saying, Because I can’t wait a second more to kiss you.)
‘Toilet.’ He ran across the tarmac and disappeared round the back of the building.
Left alone in the dark, Carla stretched her stiff limbs then walked round the front to try and figure out where she was. The windows were boarded up, but – dimly in the starlight – the sign read RITA’S CAFÉ. Oh, good God. So this was the tea room where Shay’s demon lover had worked as a waitress, before the Deargdue had tangled him in her web of dark desire and brought him away with her to the Land of the Dead …
Another demon lover, no better than the pooka. Suddenly Carla felt very afraid of the night. She glanced anxiously towards the toilet block at the back of the building.
Come on, Killian.
Should she go after him?
No, she didn’t want him to think she was clingy and creepy.
Instead, she turned and walked across the coast road and stood on the edge of the cliffs, poised above the roaring drop, her wet hoodie billowing in the wind. A light mist of spray drifted against her face like a damp net curtain, and the midnight air blew straight through her clothes, freezing her.
She needed to stop being a coward, and she needed to stop worrying about what Killian thought of her.
She had to focus on saving Aoife – that was the important thing. Ultan was a fairy, and she was going to get her wish absolutely right this time. She couldn’t make it herself – she’d already used up her three wishes – but she could get Ultan’s dad to do it for her. She would write down the words, so there was no room to mess it up like the last time, when – stupidly – she’d managed to bring Ultan home from the fairy world instead of her best friend.
She would write …
She couldn’t concentrate. She was utterly unsettled by the nearness of Killian. She had to put him out of her mind. She had to remember how mean he’d been to her. My girlfriend is extremely beautiful, which is more than I can say for you.
Bastard. (Yet did she have the right to be so angry with him? He’d only done what Shay had done before him – fallen under the spell of a demon lover.) Her mind drifted. That wonderful journey on the motorbike, her arms round him. His stomach had felt harder than last summer, as if he’d been working out.
‘Got you!’
‘Aaargh!’ Carla screamed in shock as Killian jerked her off her feet and swung her round.
He shouted gleefully over the wind and waves, ‘I thought you’d run off on me!’
‘Put me down!’
He was laughing now, at her obvious terror. ‘No way – you might disappear on me again.’ Instead of setting her down, he carried her back across the road. And she, for her part, clung happily around his neck, revelling once more in the touch of him. Pretending, for another blissful moment, that she was his girlfriend again …
Her brain snapped back into action.
He was carrying her in the wrong direction – not towards the motorbike but into the yard behind the café. She struggled to get down. ‘Hey, where are you going? I need to get to the Glen.’
‘Relax. Aoife will be grand with Lois for a few more minutes.’
‘But …’ Bizarrely – even treacherously – she felt a stab of pleasure. So he wasn’t that desperate to find Aoife after all. And meanwhile it was Carla he was holding in his arms.
He dumped her on her feet. ‘It’s all right for you, but I’ve been riding in front and I’m freezing and soaked to the skin.’ Opening a door, he used his phone to light his way into the internal darkness, calling over his shoulder, ‘Electric’s off, but there’s still some gas in the bottles.’ The next moment a ring of blue flames came on, and then another and another. ‘Yep, there’s plenty.’ A small commercial kitchen was coming into view, with yellow walls and blue tiled floor, and a big gas range. Killian was already crouched in front of the range, lighting all four ovens.
Carla remained in the doorway. Still nervous of the place.
Demon vibes.
‘Are you sure it’s OK to be here? Do you know the owner or something?’
‘No, but who cares?’ He was busy re-arranging six or seven cushions that had already been lying in front of the range. ‘Rita lives miles away. I’ve camped out here loads of times since it got boarded up for the winter. Come on in and shut the door.’
Still she hesitated. She shouldn’t – couldn’t – stop. It was only a kilometre or two further, to the Glen. Twenty minutes’ walk to the foot of the road and another twenty minutes up past her grandmother’s place to the McNeals
’. Yet like Killian, she was cold and wet. And it would probably be quicker to wait for him to drive her than to set off walking. And even half an hour was only a few seconds in the fairy world.
Besides …
(Admit it, Carla – you want to be alone with him.)
No. No. But it would be quicker to wait for him.
She stepped down into the kitchen. Killian had stripped off his shirt and was hanging it on a rack over the range. ‘So, what do you think of my secret den?’
She said rather stiffly, ‘Very nice.’
He nodded, pleased by her answer. ‘I was out here one day with Darragh, and we found the door unlocked. And since then I’ve been back a few times. It’s weird, but I feel drawn to this place somehow. Couldn’t even seem to pass by tonight without stopping for a while. Strange, huh?’ He smiled at her for the first time that evening. The smile that Aoife called his ‘boy-band’ smile. He held out his hand. ‘Come on, strip off. We’ll get you dry as well.’
Again she hesitated. ‘As long as we don’t take too long.’
‘We won’t.’
‘OK.’ Shivering, she pulled off the soaked hoodie, and he took it and hung it up beside his shirt. She left on her T-shirt, which was also soaked through.
‘Now, that’s better.’ He sat on the cushions and patted the space beside him. As she joined him, he leaned over and gave her a perfunctory kiss on the mouth. ‘I’ve quite missed you, you know. Having you ride with me like that – it reminded me of last summer, when I took you around with me on the back of my pony. We had fun then, didn’t we?’
A delicious shiver. ‘Mm.’
‘Mm? Mm, what?’ For a sweet few seconds his charming smile lingered on her. Then his phone buzzed; he took it out of his pocket and laughed. ‘Sinead and Darragh had to walk home because Lois had gone already.’
‘Oh dear …’
He grinned, still scrolling. ‘They fell in a ditch in the dark.’
‘Oh dear …’
He frowned: ‘Mam and Dad are totally bummed about the state of my room, no more parties ever.’
The Hawthorn Crown Page 9