by Jody Wallace
As Sal returned to the waiting room, she could see Liam supporting his russet head on his hands as he hunkered in one of the uncomfortable chairs. He heard her approach, glanced up.
His brown eyes—were they brown?—were tormented and, at the same time, resolved.
Without speaking, he rose and folded her in his arms. Sal softened against him. The other occupants of the waiting room politely averted their gaze.
“She thinks she’s dying,” Sal managed at last. “The doctors wouldn’t say one way or the other.”
“When are your parents due to arrive?” He stroked up and down her back restfully.
Sal buried her aching face in his chest. She wanted to drift away in the fog of exhaustion that muddled her. “Tomorrow morning. No, it is tomorrow.” The large silver-rimmed clock on the wall read 4:55 a.m. “In a couple hours.”
“Let’s go somewhere private. I let the nurse on duty know where to find us.”
Liam led her down a cold hallway to a small, enclosed courtyard, dark in the pre-dawn light. Empty industrial ashtrays stood at intervals around the concrete benches and picnic tables, remnants of the days before the hospital had a smoke-free campus.
A single tree, branches nearly bare, rustled in a hidden breeze. Liam seated her at a table and lowered himself beside her. Close. He sat close, his arm around her, for which she was grateful. His sweatshirt and her pajama bottoms weren’t the warmest outfit she could have chosen, and her mouse slippers were falling apart. She wished she’d grabbed her coat.
“I need to tell you something, and I need to show you something.”
The grim determination in Liam’s voice jogged Sal out of her trance. Liam faced one of the two doors into the courtyard, his profile etched and shadowed.
“What?” she prompted when he fell into silence.
“I’ve never told anyone this.” He turned, met her gaze. Definitely, he had brown eyes. “I love you. I think I’ve loved you for a long time, but I needed a little push to see it.”
Sal drew in a restorative breath. No way would Liam lie about this now, not even to ease her mourning.
He did love her.
“I love you, too,” she said. “But you know that.”
“I am so…” He sought the right word. “Thankful, that you do.”
Their lips met in a brief but tender kiss. After a moment, he drew away.
“And I need to show you this.” He raised a hand to his eye and tweaked out one contact lens, then the other.
Two beautiful, green irises shaped like shamrocks jumped into focus. Eyes of clover.
Definitely, he didn’t have brown eyes.
“I’m a leprechaun. I have the power to make your dreams come true, if you’ll just say the words.”
Sal knew what he meant. Suddenly, she knew. Recognition blossomed, like her grandmother had always promised. Her world tilted, and Sal slid off the edge into believing.
“What will it mean to you if I make a wish?” she asked.
Liam pressed his forehead to hers. “It will mean I can make you happy.”
“The leprechaun Gram found said she’d ruined his duck.” She ignored the sense of impending doom that pressed the back of her mind.
“Deuchainn,” he answered, pronouncing the exotic word slowly. “Some leprechauns come to humanspace to hone our mettle, if you will. We earn the right to return to our native realm by saving enough power to transport there.”
That didn’t make sense, but neither did leprechauns in general. “Why do you have to go away?”
“In the Realm, others seek to turn our magic to their own uses. Not the sìth—the fairies—who have their own magic, but droch baobh. You might call them hags or harpies. Creatures you call gnomes. They’re magic eaters. Sometimes, other leprechauns. We have to be discreet to avoid them, strong to resist them.”
“Can’t you live here and be safe from the monsters?” Who would want to live in a place like that?
“It halves our life spans and cuts us off from the magic.” Liam squeezed her hand. “Not many are willing to give that up, even with the benefits.”
But are you? Sal wanted to ask. Instead she said, “Is it like Earth—blue sky, green grass, carbon-based life forms?”
Liam’s gaze fixed on an invisible spot on the wall, as if he were remembering. “It’s similar, but your world has no magic.”
“Then how do you grant wishes?”
“Our bodies manufacture magic. At a trickle, but it’s there. When someone finds us and makes a wish, it empties our stockpile.”
“Do you want to go home?” Distracting her, a gust of sour, artificial air brushed past them. She glanced toward the courtyard entryway. Had the door just opened? No, it was closed. Perhaps there were vents nearby.
“I want to be with the woman I love.”
Sal nibbled her swollen lip. “Gram said not to use the wish for her. Do I only get one?” The air around them lightened as dawn arrived. Birds chirped in the tree above them.
“A wish like that, yes. It will consume all my power.” He clasped her shoulders. “Wish, Sal. I can’t use magic here unless someone wishes.”
“I—”
Before she could answer, the main door to the courtyard slammed open, and a tall, hook-nosed man with a bald head strode through. He wore an expensive black suit and carried a silver briefcase. An aura of menace surrounded him in an almost visible miasma.
Liam jumped up and shoved her behind him.
“Is it showdown time?” the man asked, his bass voice strong and arrogant. “No, of course not. It’s time for my revenge. You won’t find me, Liamhnach Scolaidhe, unless your tenure in humanspace has erased those crippled things you call ethics. And I don’t think it has. My PI did his job exceptionally well.”
Sal peeked around Liam’s broad back. There was something about this man, something like the difference she sensed in Liam, only dirty. Unnerving.
He was a leprechaun, too. And presumably, a powerful one, if his demeanor spoke true.
She stepped away from Liam. What words should she use?
It didn’t matter.
“Leprechaun,” she said, pointing at the man. “I see you. I know you.”
Sal was a Finder. She’d believed in him without a struggle. Of course she could distinguish what Robair was.
The mouth of Liam’s overconfident nemesis dropped open. His eyes widened so far Liam thought they might roll out of his skull. Twisted lips began to form words, words that would steal Liam’s magic. He braced for the pitch and yaw of disappointment. What would the gaidache wish for?
Sal beat him to it. She shook her finger at Robair. “Make my grandmother healthy, and no tricks, asshole, or I’ll seek you out and find you over and over.”
The man snarled, a ferocious animal sound that curdled Liam’s blood. Wordless anger bubbled from his lips, and Sal shrank against Liam.
“Nooooo!” The scream was akin to a pig being butchered, not that Liam had ever been to a slaughterhouse. Robair crumbled to his knees and clutched his head between his hands.
Liam hugged Sal, stifling a shout of relief. He wouldn’t have prompted her to find Robair, but the fact that she had, independently, filled him with grim pleasure.
Pressure built in the air like an airplane taking off. Bubbles danced across his skin. Sal gasped. Magic frothed around them, seeping from Robair as the power grew. With a whoosh, an explosion of invisible energy geysered out of the kneeling leprechaun and into the air. As the magic siphoned out of him, he shrank. He grew smaller and smaller until his suit hung from his shoulders like a sack.
Safe in the circle of Liam’s arms, Sal rubbed her eyes. “Am I seeing things?”
“Disappointed, Robair?” Liam couldn’t have planned this better, had he been amoral enough to include a Finder as an active part of his defense. Ironic that the crime he’d refused to commit had been the one that saved him and Gram alike.
He and Sal faced a bald man in overly large clothing who was about
four and a half feet tall. Robair climbed to his feet, trembling with anger.
“Your wish is granted, Finder.” Each word he spoke echoed in the courtyard like a curse, and Liam knew he spoke the truth. Incongruously, the same deep voice issued from him, though he and his vocal cords were two-thirds their original size.
Yet somehow, despite his new stature, Robair’s menace escalated. “I’ll have my revenge on you, you useless human. I’m not without power in this realm.”
“Don’t threaten me, fairy. I’ll call the cops.” Sal struggled in Liam’s grasp.
Robair glared. Liam’s grip on Sal tightened.
“It’s not legal to take revenge on Finders,” Liam said. “That will get you banished even quicker than all the magic stealing you’ve been doing. You can’t get away with everything, gaidache.”
“Do you think I care about legality? Faolains have no need to be restricted by the rules of peasants like yourself.” The man flipped open his briefcase, never taking his gaze off the two of them.
Was he bluffing? Liam doubted it. If he left Sal, she’d be at Robair’s mercy. But if he stayed, he couldn’t take his place on the searsanach council and initiate the cleansing that needed to occur.
“What if he tries to find you back?” Sal tugged him. “I want to go check on Gram. We’re done here. Please, Liam.”
“He can’t find me for some time. He has to have a little power himself to do that, and I suspect he’s fresh out.”
“You’re not fit to be a searsanach,” Robair hissed. “The council will know you used a Finder against me. I’ll see to it.”
“How the hell do you plan to do that?” Liam knew the threat was idle; leprechauns in humanspace had no way of communicating with the Realm. At least, Robair couldn’t return to the Realm for three more years, minimum, and by then, Liam would be firmly ensconced on the council.
Robair just smirked and pulled out a cell phone.
“Give me that phone, mister,” Sal said. “Don’t you dial it.”
Liam held her back. She was right to be cautious. Robair himself couldn’t find Liam, but someone else could—one of his sycophants. And if Robair was as corrupt as Liam feared, Sal wouldn’t be safe from humanspace threats.
“You can’t do this, Robair. I won’t let you. When I return, I’ll secure the council seat and let them know what you’ve been doing over here.”
“You haven’t made it back to the Realm yet.” Robair’s teeth snapped on the words. “You always were a cocky bastard.”
“You always were a dishonorable prick.”
“I can stop you.”
Liam’s anger increased as the gaidache’s arrogance hit him. “Will you break all the rules of deuchainn?”
“I won’t be bested by a meanchinn Scolaidhe who has no business wielding power.”
“I’ve already won, Robair. You saw to it our competitors were put out of commission yourself.”
Robair shook his head. “My father will never allow you a seat on the council.”
“Your father isn’t the council chair,” Liam countered.
“Oh, but he will be soon. He told me so himself.”
“You communicate with the Realm?” Liam frowned. The only way that could be true was if someone from the Realm served as a go-between.
“I do as I want.” Robair dialed the cell phone. Sal surged forward, nearly breaking Liam’s hold on her. “There’s been a change of plans,” he muttered. “Move in.”
“Son of a bitch,” Sal said. “Get the hell out of here, Liam.”
Liam was torn between his desire to protect Sal and his desire to shove his size eleven, top-of-the-line New Balance trainer in Robair’s belly. Running a close third was the desire to flee to the sìth ring and wish himself home. Report Robair’s criminal activities to the searsanach council. Restore the balance and protect his people.
Sal shook his arm. “Go on, dammit! I don’t want anybody using your magic. What if somebody reverses my wish? Or worse? You run that way, I’ll run to Gram.” She kissed him, hard, and shoved him towards the door.
“I won’t leave you.” It wouldn’t be safe for her. Even though Robair wasn’t her height, he bristled with muscle and menace.
Sal nodded and held out her hand. “All right, we run together.”
Robair moved to intercept them. “Where are you going, Liamhnach? You can’t be replete yet. You’ve got at least two more weeks. Besides, I have need of your magic now that this baobh has drained me.” He glared evilly at Sal.
“I have need of my fist against your face,” Liam threatened. He took a step forward.
Robair drew a gun from his briefcase and pointed it at Sal. “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot her.”
“Have you got any power saved up yet, leprechaun? I should find you again,” Sal said. “I wish you wouldn’t shoot us.”
Robair spat on the ground derisively. “I’m out, bitch. Your old crone of a grandmother was nearly dead. Of course, she’ll be dead soon enough.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sal stomped forward, and he cocked the pistol.
Liam tensed to jump into the line of fire, but Sal held up her hands in a gesture of surrender.
Robair laughed. “Ah, ah, ah. Never rush the man with the gun.”
“You’d better not hurt my grandmother,” Sal said. Robair’s attention was on Sal, so Liam inched toward him.
Robair sneered. “I won’t have to. She’s got a human lifespan.”
“And you’ve got a bunch more years here yourself,” Sal said, “if I understand things correctly. You’re, what, thirty-something? And now you’re really short. And ugly. You’ll be a short, bald, middle-aged asshole before you get to go home. I should tell everyone I know how to find you and you’ll never get back.”
Robair’s face reddened and he took aim at Sal.
“He’s got a gun!” she screamed and bolted towards the opposite wall of the courtyard. Robair pulled the trigger. The report of the weapon bounced off the concrete walls. Fear that was hot and icy at the same time flashed through Liam when Sal cried out with pain.
He surged forward and punched Robair in the head. The man fell like a sack of rocks. Sal stumbled but kept her balance, clutching her upper arm. Liam kicked the gun into the scrubby grass at the edge of the courtyard.
In the dawn sunshine, Liam saw blood between her fingers. “He shot you.”
Sal shook her head. “I’m in a hospital. I’ll be all right. I’m sure somebody heard the shot, and Robair called reinforcements. Go, Liam, please. Go home, where you belong. He’ll never leave you alone here.”
“I know.” She was right. If he stayed, Robair would never stop hunting, never let them be. Sal would be in less danger if Liam left to become a searsanach, but how could he desert her? “He’ll never leave you alone, either.”
“Liam, go!” Sal blinked back tears. “I’ll be all right. Tell the leprechaun cops he’s a crook. Somebody has to report this so he can be stopped.”
Robair stirred, groaned.
If Robair’s employees arrived, in three words they could ruin everything. They could drain Liam’s power, and Liam wouldn’t be able to stop it. He had to decide.
He had to go.
“I love you, Sal.”
A small woman tumbled through the other door. She noticed Liam and her eyes widened. “Leprechaun,” she gasped out, her hand clutching her side. “I ssss…ssss…see—”
Liam disappeared like a mist through the main courtyard doors.
Chapter Eleven
Tears trickled down Sal’s cheeks. Her arm throbbed, and Liam was gone.“I see you, I see you, I see you!” screamed the man on the ground. “You bitch, you missed him! How hard is that to say?”
“I’m sorry!” The woman covered her mouth with her hands and glanced at Sal. “Did…did he shoot you?”
“Hello, blood everywhere?” Sal flapped her throbbing arm. “Are you a leprechaun too? If so, I see you, lady, and please fix my arm.”
&nbs
p; “No, I’m not. Oh, shit.” The woman stumbled back into the hospital and disappeared.
“I’m going to kill you,” Robair snarled.
Heart racing, Sal decided to run as well. Two security guards burst into the courtyard. “What’s going on out here? Hold it right there, lady. Are you hurt?”
She froze and raised her hands. Pain lanced through her upper arm. The increased blood flow dampened her sweatshirt. Liam’s sweatshirt.
“That man shot me. The gun is over there somewhere. I need to sit down.” Wooziness overwhelmed her. Her knees gave out, and she sank to the packed dirt of the courtyard.
One of the guards rushed to her side. The other loomed over a furious Robair. “Buddy, if what she’s saying is true, you’re in big trouble. What do you mean, bringing a gun into a hospital? What’s your name, buddy?”
“It’s certainly not buddy,” Robair snapped. Several men in business suits who looked faintly familiar to Sal opened the doors, saw the security guards, and turned tail.
“Cowards!” Robair yelled, struggling with the guard. “You’ll regret leaving me!”
Sal couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation because she fainted.
By the time Liam reached the center of Lake Winnebago in his rented speedboat, he was four feet tall. The disappointment of being found wasn’t the only sorrow that could shrink a leprechaun. He knew that intimately now.
He could taste the glow of the sìth ring in the air. He must be close. He circled the speedboat in a tight swerve and sliced through an area that felt like the Realm. Power billowed around him, called out to him. The ring.
Liam cut the motor and veered again, back to where he’d felt the magic. He had nothing. His clothes no longer fit. He wore only a T-shirt. His feet, disgustingly, were bare. He hadn’t returned to his house for his shoes or keepsakes, fearful that Robair’s spies were watching, or that damned Pete Malinowski.
Sal would take care of everything, but who’d take care of her? He had to believe that the burly security guards he’d seen running down the hospital corridor would protect her.
He shivered. Late September on Lake Winnebago wasn’t warm. The boat coasted to a stop close to the ring and bobbed up and down on the swells.
