Rundimahair: A new hero for a new adventure

by Larry Forkner

  “It’s about time,” Grainne said cheerfully, as she hurried past him and toward the front door.

  “Hey, it’s not easy to find chilled, Russian caviar on short notice,” a young, female voice said.

  “I knew you’d do it, Linda—you always do,” Grainne said.

  “It’s true. I am the greatest assistant of all time!” the new arrival said, giggling.

  Sean used the distraction to move away from the path they would walk to return to the conference room. As he slowly stepped sideways, he glanced up at the two women. The young woman that Grainne had called Linda was at least four inches shorter than Grainne and very slender. They were busy going through the packages that Linda had brought with her.

  “How did you get all this up those stairs?” Grainne asked.

  “With my usual creativity and style,” Linda said, smiling.

  Grainne chuckled and said, “You are a stylish woman for sure. Now use your leadership skills to get a couple of them to help you get this set up for lunch.”

  “Not to worry, Grainne,” Linda said. “I’ll grab Jeremy and Sylvia to help me. We’ll have this set up in fifteen minutes.”

  While the two women headed back to the conference room door, Sean used the distraction to rush back to the front entry door. He turned and glanced back just as he was about to run through the open door. His heart lurched in his chest when he saw Grainne staring directly at him with a knowing smile on her face. He could almost feel a loose connection being established between them, which was the last thing he wanted. Sean rushed through the doors and didn’t stop running until he was down the stairs and across the massive lawn.

  Chapter Eleven

  Do not resent growing old.

  Many are denied the privilege.

  ~ Old Irish Saying ~

  The oddly fascinating and terrifying vision hastened Sean’s desire to return to Rundimahair. He now felt safer there than anywhere else. This was all still so new to him. At times it seemed like an unreal nightmare, but when he was with Ashling and her family and friends, it felt like a delightful dream come true.

  After all that had taken place since his first encounter with Rundimahair, Sean understood the experiences weren’t his imagination. Too much had transpired in the past month for him to doubt it. As bizarre as it might seem, this was becoming his new reality.

  He’d continued making new arrangements, with his office assistant, Jennie, to be out of the office for an extended period. With that understanding and the different realities of time in Rundimahair, Sean was free to try to comprehend where he truly belonged and seek what Ashling called his true destiny.

  He was packed and ready to leave early the next morning. Sean had loaded his SUV with everything he might need for the foreseeable future. He wanted to be on the road early and arrive in Rundimahair before lunchtime. The thought of having lunch with Ashling brought a surprising shiver of pleasant anticipation. He knew that his affection for her was growing stronger, but he was still surprised to realize just how much he missed her.

  In the early morning hours, Sean opened his eyes and was immediately alert and fully awake. He lay completely still and listened intently, but he only heard the deep silence of a home closed down for the night.

  What had brought him out of a deep sleep? He could hear the quiet movement of heated air through the furnace duct vents. Other than that, the house seemed completely still. Perhaps it was the after-effects of another bizarre dream. Sean shrugged that notion off. He usually recalled at least part of dreams like the one he’d had the previous night.

  He couldn’t really explain the feeling he was experiencing now, but he could sense that something was wrong. Something was definitely off. Sean thought back to the battle he and Ashling experienced in the hotel room on the Oregon coast. Just before it began, he’d had a similar feeling nagging at his subconscious mind.

  Without really understanding why, he rolled out of bed, wearing nothing but a pair of exercise shorts, and rushed to the other end of his spacious master bedroom. Mere moments later, two massive, freakish creatures crashed through his bedroom roof and landed on the bed he’d been lying in moments earlier. Along with them came a large section of the roof rafters and ceiling. Without knowing how he understood, he was certain that these were two of the creatures locked in the basement of Grainne’s castle. Somehow, she’d managed to find him.

  Before Sean could react, two smaller, cat-like animals dropped through the hole in his roof. Before they hit the bed, they seemed to disappear. He studied the darkness carefully, but without success. Whatever they were, there was no trace of them now.

  He quickly shifted his attention to the huge and grotesque beasts struggling to get free of the roof debris and his broken bed. While they had a basic humanoid shape, their faces resembled disfigured gorillas. As they struggled to their feet, he could see they were barefoot, wearing only very large, bulky sweatshirts and sweatpants. In the moonlight shining through the large new hole in his roof, they appeared to be overly hairy. Their ruddy complexions were pale green and covered with oozing sores.

  While he watched them closely, they began to circle away from each other until they were about ten feet apart. The hulkish forms seemed ready to attack, but instead they just stood there. They were apparently waiting for him to either attack or flee.

  Sean felt the same strange sensation overtake him that he’d experienced on the Oregon Coast. The feeling of thousands of volts of electricity rushing through his veins hit him anew. Instead of a healthy sense of fear, he now felt calm and actually looked forward to a fight.

  Sean was tired of waiting for them to charge him. He leapt into the air, covering ten feet in seconds. He landed a few feet in front of one beast, who looked confused and was slow to react. Sean began spinning around and landed a rapid series of brutal kicks to the side of the behemoth’s face. He heard bones cracking along its cheek bone and eye socket. Sean leapt and landed softly close behind it.

  He sensed the other beast coming at him from behind. Sean leapt high into the air again just as its plate-sized hand reached for his neck. With a perfectly executed backward somersault, he landed behind the charging creature. Before it could react, Sean side-swept a powerful kick at its right knee. The sound of bones breaking and ligaments tearing told Sean his attack had been successful.

  With a bellow of savage anger and pain, the behemoth crashed to the floor, grabbing at his ruined knee. Despite the disparity in size, Sean realized he could deal with these brutes.

  Just as he was about to put them out of their misery, Sean felt a stinging pain burning through his right hip. Instinctively, he leapt away, now feeling weakness in his right leg. Before he looked around, he realized that he’d forgotten about the cat-like creatures that disappeared earlier.

  He completed two additional leaps across his large master bedroom, trying to give himself time to see what he was fighting. Just as he landed the second time, he felt another stinging pain burn a line across his stomach muscles.

  Sean ignored the pain and lashed out with a series of leg kicks and brutal punches. The incredible speed and strength of his attack still amazed him.

  To his surprise, he felt one of the kicks strike something hard. There was very little resistance. Whatever he was fighting was not very large or heavy. When he saw a short animal-like creature suddenly appear on the floor on his left side, he knew it had been invisible. It was completely indiscernible until he’d knocked it unconscious. That is how the creature had approached him unseen.

  He took a moment to study the creature and realized it closely resembled a large bobcat, only its claws were at least six inches long and curled upward at the end. It was covered in gray fur and couldn’t have weighed more than fifty pounds. These animals must rely heavily on their speed and invisibility.

  He abruptly realized that there had been two of the beasts as he felt another raking scrape across his back. The second one had attacked him from behind. With instinctive, blazin
g speed, he leapt high in the air and came down ready to fight.

  To his surprise, the second cat-like animal ignored him and was licking its unconscious twin. Sean grabbed a large chunk of roof rafter and hurled it at the preoccupied animal. It struck the conscious cat in the head with tremendous force. The odd angle of its twisted neck told Sean it was dead.

  He barely had time to take a deep breath, before a huge, hairy hand grabbed his left arm and flung him at the far wall. Despite his great strength, Sean was stunned by the impact. His left shoulder was badly injured, making his left arm almost useless.

  He struggled to get to his feet, as the beast with the broken eye socket charged at him from across the room. Blinding, hate-filled rage filled its dull black eyes.

  Just as he was about to leap away from the creature, Sean felt another massive hand close around his right leg. He looked down to see the second beast glaring at him and smiling grimly through jagged teeth. It must have crawled across the room to reach him, since his injured knee made it impossible to walk or run.

  Sean doubled over and slammed his right fist into that creepy smile. The injured beast let go of him and roared in pain. Sean was sure he’d broken the creature’s jaw and half of his teeth.

  Before he could redirect his attention, the other beast struck him a vicious blow to his back, which again slammed Sean up against the wall. Searing pain shot through his midsection when he tried to jump free of the two injured beasts. It felt like there was serious damage to his ribs where he’d been hit.

  Even with his injuries, Sean managed to get to his feet and leap up and away from his attackers. When he landed, Sean felt a surge of dizziness and weakness coming on. Next came a burning pain from his abdomen. He looked at the claw marks on his stomach and realized he was in serious trouble. The deep cuts were already swelling and dripping with an ugly, black ooze.

  “Those cats must have had poisonous claws,” he mumbled to himself.

  He looked at the two badly injured hulks stumbling toward him. The one with the broken face was holding up the one with the broken knee. Together, they were dragging themselves toward him. Even from this distance, Sean could see the anger and murderous intent in their black eyes.

  Sean knew his only hope was escape. He was feeling weaker by the moment, as the poison worked its way through his system. He managed one, half effective leap, to put more distance between them. One more leap and he could break through a window and out of the house.

  The creature who could still walk realized what Sean was planning and dropped his companion to the floor. Before Sean could muster the energy to make the leap, he felt a massive, powerful hand close around his foot and was effortlessly lifted into the air.

  The only thing he could think to do was to turn into his dragon form. Sean desperately tried to recall how that had happened back in Rundimahair. Before he could do anything, he felt himself flying through the air again. This time he landed high up on the wall, then dropped to the floor. As he felt consciousness slipping away, Sean whispered Ashling’s name over and over.

  * * *

  Ashling was standing in the kitchen, in her robe and pajamas, when she felt a sudden desperation fill her heart and mind. It was such a powerful feeling that it caused her to drop the glass of orange juice from her hand.

  “Sean!” she shouted, while she touched her father’s thoughts. Mind to mind, she quickly told Eamon that Sean was in mortal danger. Seconds later, she disappeared from the kitchen.

  * * *

  He barely managed to open his swollen eyes, as consciousness partially returned. He’d been tossed back and forth several times, as the beasts took turns beating him to a pulp. They seemed to be taking pleasure in dragging this out, after the painful injuries he’d inflicted on them.

  The creature with the broken knee sat beside him now, grinning through his bloody, shattered teeth. If it weren’t for the paralyzing poison rushing through his bloodstream, Sean would have broken its neck.

  When the filthy beast raised its massive arm for a killing blow to Sean’s head, it appeared to be the end. It was indeed the end, but not the one he’d expected.

  He felt a searing hot wind rush by him, striking the beast with incredible force. As the heat began to sear his skin, a clear bubble of protection enveloped Sean, protecting him from the deadly heat.

  The creature desperately tried to crawl away, but it was useless. While Sean watched in amazement, the brutal hulk melted down to a blob of disgusting green muck. Even through the protective shield, he felt enough of the heat to realize it was hotter than a blow torch.

  A surge of relief touched his mind, as Ashling stepped into view next to his ruined bed. She raised her hand and a large, jagged beam lifted off the floor. Sean realized it was part of his ruined roof structure that was hurled across the room.

  The heavy beam followed a path to where Ashling was now pointing. When Sean turned his head to follow the speeding beam, he was just in time to see it rip out a large section of the remaining creature’s chest as it passed through him. Seconds later, the beast dropped to the floor and didn’t move again.

  Ashling hurried to kneel beside Sean as the protective shield dissipated. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously, as she began to run her hands over his head and body. “Oh Sean,” she whispered sorrowfully when she realized the extent of his injuries.

  That was all the sorrow she allowed herself as she went to work mending the damage. Ashling touched the swollen, bloody claw marks on his stomach and she frowned but didn’t speak.

  When she waived her hand over the terrible wound, Sean saw a searing blue flame enter his body. He expected it to burn, but it was ice cold instead. The artic flame rushed through his veins quickly and cleanly, causing him to shiver. He gritted his teeth to avoid crying out from the pain. After thirty minutes of the magical torture, he gave up and screamed in agony.

  Ashling seemed satisfied with the progress of his healing, and the freezing blue flame disappeared. Next came a comforting warmth surrounding him from head to toe. Soon the warmth penetrated the frigid cold, and Sean could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

  Without a word, Ashling stood and began moving her arms and hands about like a magical orchestra conductor. Like a film moving in reverse, Sean watched in wonder, as the debris from the roof reassembled itself in proper order. In less than twenty minutes, all damage from the attack on his home was repaired.

  Sean watched in satisfaction as the gruesome, evil, magical creatures were bound up in a blinding, white light. It began to swirl them around in circles with ever-increasing speed. Finally, the brilliant light began to fade and the remains of the deadly creatures were gone.

  Before he could say a word, she lifted him to his feet, while chanting something in a rapid whisper. Seconds later they disappeared, only to reappear in Ashling and Eamon’s kitchen.

  “I see all is well,” Eamon said, from where he sat at the kitchen table. “There must have been a fearsome, large mess to clean up if it took this long.” His words were calm and casual, but Ashling could see the worry had taken a toll on her father.

  “That it was, Father dear,” Ashling said, as she sat heavily beside Eamon. “That it was.”

  “And yet, Sean doesn’t seem much the worse for wear,” Eamon said. “Sure and true, he’s fortunate to have the best magical healer who ever drew breath as his runsearc.”

  Sean sat across from Eamon and Ashling as he asked, “Her what?”

  “Her runsearc,” Eamon said, smiling. If you went to English, it would be something like, secret love.”

  “That is more than enough out of you, Father,” Ashling said, with a furrowed brow. “I can tell you it was close to total disaster, so it was. Much too close for my liking. If I’d arrived five minutes later, it would have been too late.”

  Sean wanted to discuss the “secret love” comment but could see by Ashling’s expression that now was not the time.

  “I’m supposing the attackers were simila
r to what you confronted when you went to visit Sean at the bed-and-breakfast,” Eamon said, between bites of bacon and eggs.

  “Indeed they were. Only these ugly brutes seemed to have the added unpleasantness of poison claws to work with. Sean had several nasty claw marks on him–especially on his mid-section. The infection was already deep within him when I arrived. Thank the Creator that Sean called for help when he did.”

  “It wasn’t the giant brutes who clawed me,” Sean said, as he snatched a crispy piece of bacon. “It was the little cats who got me.”

  “Little cats?” Ashling asked, confused. “I didn’t see any other dark magical creatures.”

  “They looked a lot like a bobcat, only a bit larger. They were kind of cute if you don’t count the poisonous claws,” Sean said, now munching on an English muffin.

  “Help yourself to some breakfast, Sean,” Eamon said, smiling. “It sounds like you earned it.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Sean said brightly.

  “But I didn’t see any catlike creatures while I was cleaning up the mess you made,” Ashling said.

  “To be fair, you made a bit of a mess yourself, when you arrived on the scene,” Sean said. “Not that I’m blaming you. I appreciated the help.”

  Ashling rolled her eyes and said, “Still and all, I didn’t see any kitties roaming around your house.”

  “That’s because they were invisible,” Sean explained. “At least they could become invisible at will. That’s how they got close enough to tear into me. I didn’t see them coming. When I was finally able to finish them off, they just disappeared.”

  Eamon looked puzzled, as Ashling sighed deeply and asked, “Where are these deadly creatures coming from all of a sudden?”

  “I wish I knew,” Eamon said. “We’ve seen variations on the giant beasties before, but I’ve not heard of the wildcat creatures in all my days.”