Waking the Dead

by Jane Davitt

  Around them, conversations died, silence spreading outward as heads turned to watch. Todd tensed behind the bar and then began to move toward them, but caught Nick’s eye and subsided.

  John, who didn’t get intimidated easily, met Toran’s aggression with a contemptuous snort. “Is that so? Not a version of the story I’ve ever heard.” Like Toran, he kept his voice down, but they were still getting too much attention. He shrugged free, and Toran let him, his breath coming in short gasps.

  Nick turned to Blayne. “If that’s so ‑‑” John snorted again, but Nick continued. “Then we can talk about it, but not here. Let’s go someplace else, okay?”

  Blayne tilted his head, his gaze sliding past Nick to a group of men in the corner who had gone back to their card game when John and Josh hadn’t begun to fight. “I like it here. I see an old friend.”

  Nick gave the men a cursory glance. He knew them by sight, but they were twenty years older and he wasn’t sure what their names were or which of them Blayne meant. “No, you don’t know them,” he said. “You don’t know anyone alive today. You’re out of your time, and you don’t belong here.”

  “He’s right,” John said. “And if you’ll let him, he can help to send you to where you do belong.” He added, “Heaven or hell, and I’m still thinking it’s going to be the last one.”

  A pause, and then Fred ‑‑ Blayne, Nick reminded himself ‑‑ nodded. “Fine.”

  Nick wasn’t sure why they’d agreed; maybe it was just because they had the sense to realize that starting a brawl in a pub full of people, none of whom knew them, wasn’t likely to end well. He was just glad they were willing to step outside, away from the crowd that had no idea what was going on. Hopefully, they’d be able to get this taken care of before that changed.

  “So what is it you think you can do for us?” Josh asked, once they’d stepped outside and away from the pub’s entrance. “Because somehow I’m doubting we have the same goals in mind.”

  “Well, you can’t stay like this.” Nick tried to sound relaxed and reasonable about it when he was feeling anything but. “You must be using up an awful lot of energy, being in these bodies the way you are. I don’t think the original owners are just sitting there quietly, letting you do whatever you want.”

  Blayne nodded. “Aye, well. This one’s none too happy about it, and that’s the truth. Doesn’t mean I’m going to just turn control back over to him, though, no matter how much he might want it. We were cheated, Toran and I ‑‑ it wasn’t right.”

  “I can see how you’d feel that way,” Nick said diplomatically. Across the road from the pub, a low wall ran along a steep, rocky slope leading down to the water, with a bench in front of it. “Why don’t we go over there and you can tell me what happened?”

  Toran rolled his eyes but after a quick glance at Blayne, he walked to the bench and sat down on it, his legs sprawled wide, his face impassive. Blayne sat beside him, and Nick and John sat facing them on the wall, the sea at their backs.

  “So,” John said. “Innocent, you say?”

  “We watched her die,” Toran said, “but the only part we had in that was walking through the door when she thought us many miles away. It was getting dark and she was always nervous, ready to jump and scream at a mouse skittering over the floor. She must have heard us coming because she peered out through the window. We saw her and waved and thought she knew it was us. We were singing ‑‑ a little drunk, happy to be home, our pockets well-lined.”

  “We’d a gift for her,” Blayne added, his face locked in sad lines now. “A wee hand mirror. She’d had one when we were bairns and dropped it and cried for hours over it.”

  Despite himself, Nick felt sympathy rise, picturing the scene.

  “We hammered on the door, roaring out for her to open it and let us in, not knowing why she hadn’t come running to meet us…” Toran shook his head. “She lay behind the door, so close that when I pushed it open, it struck her head, but she was already dead, I swear, her eyes staring up at me, wide and empty. God, will you ever forget her eyes?” he asked his brother. “I see them now, I do ‑‑”

  There were tears in Blayne’s eyes. “I know. We stood there for so long, barely saying a word to each other. Shock, I think. It had been years since we’d been home, and we were so looking forward to surprising her…”

  “We were still standing there, with the front door open and her body on the floor, not yet cold, when someone must have happened by.” Toran wrapped his arms around himself. “Not twenty minutes later, a group came up the path with torches and weapons. We tried to run off, but they caught us near the shore. They knocked us about and tied our hands behind our backs, and put us in that cave. They wouldn’t listen to a word we said, wouldn’t even hear us…”

  Nick had no idea what to say to that. He could imagine all too vividly what it would have been like, the water getting higher and higher until there was no air left to breathe.

  “They were the murderers,” Blayne said fiercely. “And after we died, we went after them. It was only fair ‑‑ we wanted revenge for what they’d done.”

  “I can understand that in a way,” John said. “And I can understand why they stopped you, too.”

  Toran made an odd choking sound, half groan. “That spell… Trapped in that cave… It was like they wouldn’t stop tormenting us. We were held there like flies in honey, struggling endlessly.”

  “And then we freed you,” Nick said. “And now you have a choice ‑‑”

  “No,” John interrupted, his elbow nudging into Nick’s ribs, a warning, Nick supposed. “You have a path to follow. An interrupted journey to finish.”

  “Go toward the light?” Nick muttered under his breath. “Somehow I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”

  “Maybe not,” John said. “You weren’t angels, were you? Or was the part of the legend that had your pockets full of stolen gold a lie, too?”

  “We had money, aye,” Blayne said. “Wouldn’t you have, if you were coming home to see your mother for the first time in years? But it wasn’t stolen; we’d earned it, every guinea.”

  Nick shook his head, because they were getting so far off-track it wasn’t even funny. “Look, you’re going to have to go, whether you want to or not. You’re not powerful enough to stay here indefinitely.” He hoped.

  “It doesn’t need to be indefinitely,” Blayne said with a smirk. “Just long enough to ‑‑” He broke off as Toran suddenly groaned and clutched at his head, bending low at the waist, face hidden.

  Nick was up off the wall in a shot, silently praying that Toran was somehow dissipating, or at least losing the ability to keep control of Josh the way he had been. He knelt on the ground in front of the man, and when Toran lifted Josh’s face again, it was Josh’s green eyes that looked back at him, anguished.

  “Nick,” he gasped, grabbing at Nick’s hands and holding on tightly. “They want ‑‑ they want to kill people, all the ones that are related to ‑‑ God, don’t let them. Please.”

  “I know,” Nick said. He could feel John standing just behind him; Blayne had jumped to his feet and backed away a few steps. “It’s okay. We won’t. Just hang on.”

  “They’re crazy.” Josh pressed the heel of one hand to his temple. He was shaking. “Insane. They weren’t, before, but I think all those years in that cave…”

  “Toran!” Blayne’s voice cracked. “Where are you, brother?”

  Good question. Nick guessed Toran was still inside Josh ‑‑ no, he knew that, because he could sense him ‑‑ but Toran was quiescent now, a stronger will holding his at bay. Possession was nine-tenths of the law, and Josh was firmly entrenched after eighteen years of ownership; Toran was clinging by his fingertips.

  Blayne threw his head back, his eyes lit with a roiling dark energy, his face contorted with grief and loss. “Toran!” he screamed up at the sky. “To me, brother! To me!”

  “What the hell?” John asked. “Nick!”

  But the
re was nothing he could do. As they watched ‑‑ and Nick wondered if John and Josh could even see it ‑‑ Toran’s spirit escaped the prison of flesh and bone that Josh’s body had become and flowed into Fred’s body, joining his brother.

  Blayne screamed again, exultant this time, and then moved with a speed and strength that was beyond anything a human could match. Nick caught a fist to his jaw and staggered out of the way, tasting the bright, warm copper of his blood. It filled his senses so that as he slammed against the low wall, he felt no pain. Just darkness and John’s name dying on his lips as he called out a warning.

  Chapter Eleven

  Fred ‑‑ Blayne ‑‑ shouldn’t have been able to move so fast; John knew that as certainly as he knew anything. And yet he had. So fast that John had found himself flat on the ground, unsure what part of Blayne had hit him but sure, at least, that it had connected with his right cheek, which was throbbing.

  He groaned and rolled onto his side. Josh was lying crumpled a few feet away, almost near enough to touch, and Nick ‑‑ John’s heart gave a sickly throb until he saw him, half propped up against the wall and stirring now, one hand rising to touch his face gingerly.

  “All right?” John asked Nick, forcing himself to his hands and knees and crawling closer to Josh.

  “I think so. Josh?”

  “He’s out cold.” John was afraid to move the boy too much, in case he was hurt in ways he couldn’t see, but he touched Josh’s face. “Josh? Come on, lad. Wake up now.”

  Nick came over and dropped to his knees beside them. “Josh? Joshua.”

  Another thirty seconds or so of persistence on their parts, and finally Josh blinked and groaned. He opened his eyes, closed them again.

  “Josh,” Nick said firmly.

  Josh opened his eyes again. “Nick?”

  “Yeah. It’s okay. Just take it easy. Don’t try to ‑‑”

  But Josh was already trying to sit up. Nick made a frustrated sound and helped him, shifting to give the boy something to lean against. “Is he really gone? Is that ‑‑ I mean. I don’t know.” He sounded half addled, and with good reason from what John could tell.

  “Out of you and gone from here, but not gone altogether,” John told him. “He ‑‑ both of them ‑‑ they’re inside that poor man.” He shuddered. “I’m not sure they liked being apart. I’m thinking this is better for them.”

  “It’s not better for Fred,” Nick said. “Josh barely kept his head above water, and if I had to guess, I’d say what he can do helped him with that.” It made sense, and John gave Nick an encouraging nod. “But Fred… he didn’t seem that strong a personality to start with, and he’s got two spirits in there now.”

  “So he’s drowning.” John swallowed and tried not to think of how that would feel. He’d fallen overboard once and sunk deep, but he’d got back to the surface. Somehow, he wasn’t sure Fred ever would.

  “Is that boy drunk like that man who just barged into me?” John turned. Marion Macready was staring down at Josh with her thin face pinched with disapproval, gray hair pinned back in a bun as tight as her lips. “All that yelling and that man nearly knocked me flying when I came to see if I could help…”

  Came to nose around and get a juicy bit of gossip to pass on and wave under my mother’s nose the next time you see her. Josh, who must have been listening in, gave a small snort of laughter, and John frowned a warning at him.

  “No.” Nick was running a hand through Josh’s hair, no doubt checking to see if he’d given himself a goose egg when he’d fallen, and he seemed to only be half paying attention to what he was saying. “He slipped on something. You know what tourists can be like.”

  That was funny, because some of the islanders still didn’t think of Nick as much more than a tourist himself, and Marion was one of them. She pursed her lips, clearly wondering if Nick was making fun of her, and Josh laughed again, weakly, then apologized when the woman looked affronted.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I think I must have hit my head.”

  Nick gave a short shake of his own head in John’s direction to tell him Josh hadn’t, that it was just a convenient excuse he’d borrowed from Nick’s thoughts.

  “Well, it’s just not right. Those tourists need to look after their own so that they don’t cause trouble like this. Drinking and carrying on, knocking people down… It’s a disgrace is what it is.” Marion was frowning.

  “We’ve got matters well in hand, Marion,” John said. “Tell me, which way did the man go?”

  “He got into a car and drove off like the devil was chasing him.” She fingered the worn clasp of her handbag, sunlight glinting off the wedding ring rolling loosely on her thin finger. Her husband had died when John was a child, and it’d soured her disposition, or so his mother had said when she hadn’t known John had been listening. At eight, it hadn’t left him sympathetic, but now, with Nick in his life, he could feel pity for her. If he ever lost Nick… Well, there was no sense in thinking about that now.

  “Drove where?”

  “How would I be knowing where, John McIntyre?” she snapped. “With these new roads all over the island, he could have been going anywhere.”

  John blinked. New roads? She couldn’t be meaning the small housing development on the outskirts of town; that was a single road and fifteen houses he’d helped build.

  “It used to be that I could walk around this town blindfolded and not get lost,” she went on. “Now, there’s new shops, new faces, changes every five minutes ‑‑”

  “Will you just tell me which way he went?” John kept himself from raising his voice with an effort. “Please, Marion; it’s very important. You can be a big help here if you can just tell me that.”

  She looked fleetingly surprised, and he wondered when the last time she’d been told she mattered was. “Well, he went up Dumfries Street

  .” That didn’t help; the road led to a T-junction and the road it merged with looped all around the island. “And because he’d been so rude, I watched him go.” Of course, she did. “He turned left at the junction,” she finished.

  Left… John followed the road in his head. Up to the stones; back past his and Nick’s house… och, the man could’ve gone anywhere.

  “Thank you, Marion.” Nick smiled at her. “Really.”

  She bridled, a flush staining her wrinkled face. “I’ve got eyes and I use them, that’s all. Now get that young man to bed and let him sleep it off.”

  With that parting shot, she left, her back straight, her steps hurried as she went to find someone to share her tidbit of news with.

  Before any of them could say anything, John’s cell phone rang. “Oh for God’s sake, what now?” he muttered, reaching for it and flipping it open. “Hello?”

  “Uncle John? It’s Cait. We’ve got it ‑‑ the list of people who were involved in the Lennox brothers’ deaths. What about you? Have you found Josh?” Caitrin sounded hopeful, as if she thought she was capable of anything, and it felt good to be able to give her the news.

  “Aye, we’ve got him, he’s right here, and back to himself again.” John stood and helped Nick get the boy to his feet as Caitrin babbled her relief into his ear.

  “Where are you? We’ll come there.”

  The thought of her out on the road, where Blayne and Toran could get their hands on her, made John’s blood run cold. “No,” he said quickly. “No, we’ll come back to you. Stay where you are, do you hear me?”

  Caitrin sounded taken aback, but she agreed, and John hung up the phone. “Cait’s got the information we need ‑‑ I told her we’d come there. I don’t want her out with those two running around like madmen.”

  “Okay.” Nick nodded, looking resolute. “Then let’s go. We don’t want to waste any more time.”

  *****

  Bonnie’s hotel room was crowded with five of them in it. John opened the window, ignoring Bonnie’s raised eyebrows as he hadn’t bothered to ask permission first, and breathed in deep. The room smelled of
perfume, expensive, pervasive, and he felt as if he couldn’t get enough oxygen into his lungs.

  Crowded. Aye, but it was even more so inside Fred’s head, the poor bastard. John swung around and put out his hand. “Let me see it.”

  Silent for once, she passed him the small notepad the hotel had considerately put in each room, each page mostly taken up with a line drawing of the hotel and its full address. Caitrin had needed two pages to write five names.

  “That family’s gone,” he said, tapping the first name on the list. “It dwindled to a single son, and he died in the trenches at sixteen. Old enough to enlist with a few blind eyes turned, but he didn’t leave anyone behind. And if Robert Sinclair is the one I’m thinking of ‑‑”

  “He was a lawyer,” Caitrin put in.

  “Aye, it’s a tradition in that family. But they’re all long gone from the island. The last of the Sinclairs moved to Canada in the fifties. Alberta, I think.” John frowned. “Somewhere with bears. One of them sends my mother Christmas cards.”

  “What about the others?” Nick asked. “And, you know, John, the way everyone on the island’s related, the spirits could probably find a distant cousin easily enough.”

  “No.” Josh shook his head. “They wouldn’t do that. They think they’ve got right on their sides, and that would… I don’t know. It wouldn’t seem fair to them. Direct-line descendants, and I think they’d feel happier if they were men, too.”

  Caitrin sniffed at that and Josh rounded on her. “You want to be a target? Do you?”

  “No,” she said, looking startled. “It’s just… they’re being so…”

  “They think they’ve been wronged,” Nick said. “They don’t see themselves as the villains here; like the people who killed them, they see this as justice.”

  “But it isn’t,” Caitrin said. “It was a misunderstanding back then, and the people alive now had nothing to do with it!”

  “The sins of the fathers,” John said. “Visited on the sons.”

  Into the silence that fell, he read out the last three names. “Robinson, Hailley, and Quinn.” He tossed the notepad down on the nightstand. “They’re all around still, and I know who they’ll go for first.”