by S. M. Reine
Nightmare or dream—it was too early in the night to tell.
Elise tolerated the violation of her personal space as the boys pulled her up to the bar. They were already telling the bartender about what she’d done at the castle. The woman behind the bar laughed and kept polishing glasses. She wasn’t impressed with the story. Clearly, she’d heard more than her fair share of bullshit from young men just like these.
“She’s not to buy a single drink tonight,” Seamus said, slinging an arm around Elise’s shoulders. “She’s a goddamn hero, you hear?”
“Heroine!” corrected a blond girl who sidled up to the bar. She kissed one of Seamus’s friends, named Ryan. “You didn’t tell me you were coming here tonight! I didn’t even know you were in town!”
Other girls quickly emerged to talk to the men. They all clustered with Elise at the center, forced into a tight group by the weight of the crowd.
Even in the middle of it all, Elise felt detached, as though watching them socialize from a distance. She watched their lips move, the way their bodies tilted, the language of motion. There was no hint of menace in any of them. Elise was the only one thinking of violence. She was always thinking of violence.
Ryan bought a round and Elise drank her first Guinness in a few long gulps. The beer was pleasantly frothy and rich and she was thirsty.
When she set the glass down, she became aware that Seamus had stopped talking. He was staring.
“Careful, Elise,” he said. “The night’s barely started! You don’t want to get trashed before we’ve had any fun.”
“I can hold my alcohol,” she said.
“How many Irishmen have you tried to drink with?” He was standing very close, his whole body pressed against her side. Elise decided not to tell him that he was hardly the first—or most charming—Irishman she’d visited pubs with before. “You’d be surprised what a real alcohol tolerance is like.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “I can outdrink you.”
“You ? Tiny little thing?” Seamus laughed. “You barely even come up to my chest.”
She was actually only three inches shorter than him. She suspected that he had at least eighteen percent body fat, too—hardly an athlete—whereas she was pure muscle and much heavier than she looked. There were no standards by which Elise could be called “tiny.”
Even if she hadn’t been a kopis, she would have bet that she could outdrink Seamus.
Since she was a kopis, with the amazing metabolism that went along with that, she thought she could do even better.
“I’ll outdrink all of you,” she said, raising her voice so the other students could hear her. “Consecutively.”
Now all the men were laughing, and the girls, too. Elise couldn’t tell if they were meant to be laughing along with her or if they were laughing at her. It was impossible to tell the difference.
Either way, they weren’t taking her seriously.
She pulled out her wallet. Then she pulled out a few hundred euros and set them on the table. “I’ll give this to anyone who can keep drinking after I stop.”
That made the laughter stop.
And then one of the girls was ordering a round, and Seamus was shoving her into a chair, and the others were clustering around to watch. Elise slipped her jacket off, hung it on the corner of her chair.
“Outdrinking almost a dozen Irishmen is a tall order,” Seamus said, giving her a kind of look she had come to recognize as sexual. He planned to have sex with Elise that night. The fact that she could tell meant that he wasn’t being subtle about it at all.
Her ex-boyfriend, Malcolm, had gotten the same expression when he thought he was about to get laid. He’d usually been right. There had been something exhilarating about his sexual adventurousness, his willingness to fuck against the wall of demon hives after burning them to the ground, and Elise felt a tingle of that similar exhilaration as Ryan’s girlfriend set a tray of drinks on the table between them. If Seamus remained conscious long enough, he’d definitely be getting lucky.
The girl had gotten enough Guinnesses to go around the entire group. Elise stopped the others from grabbing any. “I said I’d drink you all under the table consecutively.”
“You mean you want to split these between the two of us,” Seamus said.
She responded by taking one glass.
James would never have approved of this game for multiple reasons. It was never wise to advertise the presence of a kopis, especially a female kopis. Her ability to demolish that much alcohol would be like advertising her presence to any local preternatural creatures. And once they started talking about her, rumors had a way of getting carried to dangerous ears on the wind.
Beyond that, James would warn her that this game could hurt the mundanes she was drinking against. Men were stupid when they got challenged. Elise might not be able to get drunk easily, but they could, and alcohol poisoning was a very real risk.
And Elise also thought James probably just didn’t want her to have fun.
That was the most irritating of all the reasons he would have tried to discourage her if he were there, controlling bastard that he was.
Seamus lifted the first glass in a silent toast.
Fuck James.
Elise clinked glasses with Seamus and knocked back the first Guinness.
Everyone cheered.
Night fell. The hours inched past. Elise remained at the pub, and James worked in the dark without her.
Books were ordinarily all the company he needed. Research was his hobby—what his ex-fiancée had called “a pretty lame hobby, James, have you thought about taking up stamp collection?”—and it was easy to lose himself in his favorite Books of Shadows, demoniacal hierarchies, and old diaries.
Now he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the clock.
It was approaching eight o’clock. Elise would probably still be out drinking for a long time. But he wanted to speak with her more than he wanted to figure out what kind of demon they had exorcised, and it made focusing difficult.
“Focus,” James muttered, shuffling through the newspapers he’d collected from a neighbor’s over-full garbage can. He had been poring over the local news ever since Elise left, searching for any indication of how a demon could have ended up in the city.
He hadn’t found anything.
Also, the clock said it was now nine minutes to eight.
James sat back, raking a hand through his hair.
It simply didn’t make sense for a demon to inhabit Castle O’Reilly. There was no other indicator of infernal activity in Ireland. Europe was nothing like North America, with all of the weak spots in the walls separating Earth from Hell; it took real effort—obvious effort—to bring demons over to the mortal worlds. There were also no undercities in Western Europe where demons could breed in secret.
If a witch had been summoning demons, there surely would have been news about it.
But there wasn’t.
“There must be something else,” James said aloud, gazing at the ceiling. “Something I’m missing.”
If demons were geographically unlikely, then what kinds of creatures were likely ?
He slammed his books shut, went into the bedroom, opened his suitcase. He traveled with very little of his library on hand, so most of his texts lived in Las Vegas with McIntyre, one of the few kopides that James and Elise considered to be a friend. When James needed something, he simply had McIntyre ship it to the nearest post office.
McIntyre had shipped a bestiary specific to Ireland to James at his request, and it had arrived just that morning. Ireland’s Secret Life was very rare, perhaps priceless; it had been written by a kopis in the 1960s, and fewer than a hundred copies were ever printed.
James’s copy was yellowed with age, its spine soft. It was butter in his hands when he opened it to the index.
Ireland wasn’t a big island, but the variety of creatures that had been sighted there over the years was impressive. The preternatural diversity easily riv
aled that in America.
However, Ireland didn’t have demons. It had Earth spirits instead.
The kopis had logged sightings of some basandere that had traveled from northeastern Spain. He’d also noted a handful of brownies, which had been exterminated in the 1920s. He’d found one selkie the year prior to the book’s publication. The kopis who had written the book even claimed to have come across some kind of avian shapeshifter, although James thought that was probably a fish story since he’d only ever heard of wolf shifters before.
There was an entire chapter on a creature called the beansidhe, though. It was a rare subspecies of the sidhe spirits that was known for announcing death by shrieking.
Chills rolled down James’s spine when he read the word “shrieking.” He recalled the unearthly noise that creature had made as clearly as though it were still in the room beside him.
He was probably going to be nursing a migraine from that sound for the next month.
“But that can’t be right,” he murmured.
The creature haunting Castle O’Reilly had vanished when Elise finished the exorcism rite. It had to be a demon—nothing else would have responded to the prayer of St. Benedict.
Unless it had been hiding deliberately, which would mean that the sidhe was still lurking at the castle.
And James and Elise had left it alive.
Considering how swiftly the sidhe had gutted Gregg McNamara, he could only imagine what else it might do now that it had been provoked. There was a chance it would do nothing at all—according to Joshua O’Reilly, it had been dormant at the castle for years.
James didn’t want to take that chance.
The Castle O’Reilly’s pamphlet said the ground would be open until nine o’clock that night.
The time was seven fifty-seven.
James drummed his fingertips on the spine of the bestiary. Elise was at the pub with her new friends. He could always find her—it wouldn’t take long, as there could only be so many pubs within walking distance. And she would probably leave a social event to make sure their job had been resolved neatly.
Elise’s reluctance to leave earlier nagged at him.
No, it was better if she stayed out having fun. He could check into the castle on his own.
James donned his peacoat, tucked the bestiary into his jacket beside the Book of Shadows, and went jogging into the rainy night.
Elise started feeling strange after the fifth of Seamus’s friends tapped out within two hours.
She had only managed to get drunk a handful of times in her life, and never to a point where it was dangerous. It required truly vast amounts of alcohol to make her feel fuzzy. Now her vision was doubled, her fingers were tingling, and all the voices sounded distant.
People were still cheering her on. Their faces swirled around the table.
Seamus was slumped in a chair beside her, unconscious and incapable of keeping the promise his leers had made. She didn’t care at this point. Elise couldn’t even focus her eyes on him.
Nausea. That’s what Elise was feeling.
She thought she might throw up.
Still, she took the next Guinness, staring into its murky depths and running her thumb through the condensation on the outside. “Who’s next?” Her tongue fumbled on the simple words.
Two of the students got in a minor slap fight over it, punching each other in the shoulders, shoving back and forth until one finally sat. He was already red-cheeked and swaying. Halfway to blackout drunk. He wouldn’t remain conscious long enough to concede to Elise.
Of course, her chair was feeling pretty unstable underneath her. She wasn’t entirely certain she could outlast this one.
No. I’ve got this. I’m the fucking Godslayer. I can outdrink the whole bar.
Elise lifted the Guinness. It slopped over the rim and she sucked the beer off her wrist.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Let’s do this!” said her new opponent.
The bartender put a hand over Elise’s glass before she could drink.
She must have been ever drunker than she realized. She hadn’t noticed the bartender approaching. Her senses were dulling—if someone attacked her, she would be fucked.
“I think you’ve had enough,” Haley said. “You’re going to kill yourself at this rate.”
Elise stood up on unsteady legs. Haley was taller than her, with exceptionally broad shoulders for a woman. She wasn’t threatening, though. Elise had taken down entire hordes of demons on her own. Hordes. And they hadn’t tried to get between her and a good Guinness. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
The bartender’s face, duplicated in Elise’s vision, looked entirely unimpressed. “You’re not having another drink.”
“Who’s going to stop me?” Elise asked.
“Someone get her out of here,” Haley called. “Walker? You want to grab her?”
He backed away with his hands lifted. “I’ve seen her with a sword. I’m not touching her.”
“Come on.” Haley grabbed her by the elbow.
Elise swung a hard punch.
She had to guess which of Haley’s doubled heads was the real one, and Elise picked wrong. Her fist swooped right through the double vision of the bartender and connected with the man behind her. He was named Rocky, a friendly young guy, and Elise probably would have felt guilty about punching him if she’d had anything resembling a clear head.
The laughter swirled around her. The floor flipped upside down as Haley dragged Elise to the door, tossing her outside none too gently.
Elise hit cobblestone. Blood splattered down her chin.
She fingered her teeth. They were intact, but she’d bitten her lip when she fell. That was Haley’s fault. The bartender would pay.
It took two tries to get to her feet. Elise’s jacket was soaked from the puddle, so she shed it, baring muscular arms. Haley was standing in the doorway, dishrag tucked in her apron, still looking bored.
The boys were spilling out of the pub now. Seamus had regained consciousness, though Walker had to hold him upright. Several of her new friends were holding beers as they cheered her on. They looked delicious.
Haley wasn’t going to let her keep drinking, though.
Wavering, Elise lifted her fists in front of her face, squaring off against the bartender. “Come at me.”
Haley snorted. “You couldn’t punch the wall right now.”
That sounded like a challenge.
Elise lunged.
Haley wasn’t standing where she expected. Instead, Elise ran face-first into the door frame.
The bartender started laughing. She hadn’t magically teleported. She’d just stepped aside, which normally would not have made Elise miss.
If at first you don’t succeed…
Elise swung another blow, and Haley sidestepped that too. Then she planted her boot in Elise’s ass.
The legendary Godslayer landed in the muddy gutter.
“Don’t come back,” Haley said, heading into the pub. She landed a few high-fives on the way. At least, Elise thought she did. It was hard to tell when everything was upside down and split into double and spinning in circles.
She had just lost against a human bartender. Not even a witch.
James could never, ever know what had happened.
The students made appropriately consoling noises as they helped Elise to her feet—consoling, teasing, and admiring noises. They couldn’t seem to decide if she was awesome or pitiable. At the moment, she felt a bit like both. “I just wanted more beer,” Elise grumbled, leaning heavily on Seamus, who leaned heavily on her too.
“Haley’s not any fun. She tosses people out all the time,” Walker said. “Lucky for you, I’ve still got another drink.” He practically poured the Guinness down Elise’s throat, laughing the whole time. It was a party trick now. The woman who could take any amount of alcohol and keep standing.
Except Elise suddenly couldn’t keep standing.
Her stomach lurched. Sh
e vomited all over Seamus’s shoes.
Then she hit the ground and didn’t get up again.
4
Joseph O’Reilly always enjoyed a little orange pekoe tea before bed, but he relished it even more than usual that night. His castle had been exorcised. It was safe once more for tourists. And nobody would ever know what had happened to Gregg McNamara.
It was a shame that Gregg had died. Not that much of a shame—he wasn’t that good of a tour guide—but it was too bad for a man so young to have lost his life, even if he had been whiny, lazy, and terrible at making sales in the gift shop.
O’Reilly had rung a friend who owned a mortuary, who’d picked up the ashes and tossed them into the incinerator with the next body to be cremated. They’d swapped a fair share of favors over the years. Patrick wouldn’t tell anyone what he’d done.
It was impossible to explain a murderous haunt to the police. O’Reilly didn’t feel at all guilty about hiding the death.
Everything had ended as tidily as he could have hoped, and the orange pekoe tasted especially rich.
He sat in a wingback chair beside his window as he sipped it, all lights off in his room at the top of the castle’s tower. There were less drafty places he could have put a bedroom, but the tower was his favorite. It had a great view of Dublin’s lights on the horizon.
The reflection of a pale figure flashed across his window.
“I told you to go home, Billie,” O’Reilly said. “I’ve no mind for company tonight.”
Billie didn’t reply.
He glanced at the door. It was closed and nobody was in the room with him. The clock said it wasn’t even closing time yet; Billie would still be staffing the front desk.
But O’Reilly hadn’t imagined the reflection. He was old, not delusional.
The teacup clinked as he set it on the saucer. “Billie?” he called, softer than before, as he plucked the rosary off of the lamp where it dangled. The beads felt cold against his fingers.
The temperature in the room was dropping. It could have been the wind through the cracks in the stones, but O’Reilly didn’t think so. Not with the way he felt it in his marrow.
