Ronan Boyle and the Swamp of Certain Death

by Thomas Lennon

  My trembling hand scrawled out: Cult of Crom Cruach in my notebook. It rang the vaguest bell in my head. But from where? Then it hit me: CROM CRUACH! Precisely who Brian Bean warned me about in my dream or possibly not-a-dream!

  “Red-Eyed Woman pulls out a book of spells in Goídelc—the old language—and puts one on Crom Cruach called Finnegan’s Wake or some such. She says this incantation and throws decent whiskey over his face. Next thing I know, he sits right up on the table, alive—or undead. Oh, his breath—something I won’t soon forget. The morning breath of four thousand years. I swear on me mum’s grave that it’s true,” said Dooley. “And yes, I had a mum—Fiona was her name. Same name as yer mum, Boyle.”

  “Don’t try to curry sympathy from me while you clutch my very nice umbrella, you scoundrel!” I said.

  I yanked away the umbrella, sticking it between my belt and my kilt and accidentally poking my thigh so, so hard. I would not lose my nice umbrella again.

  I had never doubted myself more than this moment, and keep in mind: Self-doubt is like my full-time hobby. I was not cut out for these type of vendetti.

  I knew what I should do: OVERTHINK MY NEXT MOVE for several arduous minutes while a flop sweat seeps from my beret.

  But then a clear thought rang out like a bell in my worried mind. I decided that if I really was an imposter, as it always felt like, I should at least be an imposter of someone smarter and braver than me.

  I decided to become an imposter of Captain de Valera. And the captain doesn’t think—she acts.

  “Lord Desmond Dooley, in the name of the Commissioner of the Special Unit, you are under arrest for conspiracy, abetting in a kidnapping, transfer of stolen goods and/or mummies. Cuff him, Cadet MacDougal,” I pronounced firmly, just like the captain would.

  Dooley misted snot at me from his last remaining weapon—his nose.

  Log dropped Dooley out of the wedgie and cuffed him to my wrist.

  “Gary, oh brave werewolf!” I bellowed, adding the word brave to win him over. “You shall deliver us over the wall of North Ifreann this very night!”

  “Tonight? Tonight’s nae good for me.” Gary shrugged, licking a part of his werewolf body that I will not describe to you, as you are decent people. “I’ve got a thing.”

  I paced in the style of the captain, trying to think of a way to convince Gary to take us up the wall right away.

  “But! Ye shall be rewarded, brave Gary. In exchange for your assistance tonight . . . um . . . you shall receive a full pardon for all those crimes ye have committed in the human country of Scotland! They shall be wiped from your permanent record, forever, in perpetuity, ipso-facto. I, Detective Ronan Boyle, am authorized to make this deal per the accord between the Special Unit of Tir Na Nog, and our friends at the Poileas Sìthichean.”*

  Gary fidgeted and scratched himself for a moment. A complex series of guilty looks moved across his face, like Doppler news radar showing the next five days of emotions.

  I should let you in on a small secret: I did not have evidence of any crimes committed by Gary in the human country of Scotland. This was a HUNCH. No werewolf with that many tattoos and that much Irn-Bru in his bloodstream DID NOT have a thing or two on their record, right?

  I waited, bluffing, trying to present myself as the very serious detective I might one day be.

  “Ah, think, Gary, all the bad deeds ye done, expunged forever,” said Freya as she nuzzled him, getting some of her copious blue eyeshadow on his chest fur.

  The gambit paid off. Gary extended his claws to me.

  “Fer Mum, yes. I’ll do it. And I have yer word, then, beefie. My crimes will be explunged?” asked Gary, mispronouncing expunged. “Keep in mind, some o’ them beefies I ate in Girvan was numbies who weren’t no good use to anybody outside of me belly anyways.”

  “You have my word, Gary the Werewolf,” I said, shaking his jittery paw. “Now, there’s no time to waste—we have a sacrifice to stop.”

  “And nothing to wear,” added Figs, who had nothing to wear except his hat.

  * The Poileas Sìthichean is the Scottish counterpart to the Garda Special Unit of Tir Na Nog. They are headquartered in what looks like an old tin of Pringles under a bridge in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow. The Poileas Sìthichean deal with Scottish faerie folk who are both abundant and fiercely proud of their heritage. If you’re on holiday in Glasgow: DO NOT attempt to visit the office, as it’s guarded by a cat sìth, which is a demonic cat the size of a cow, and also by two human Glaswegians—and Glaswegians are not to be trifled with.

  Chapter Fifteen

  UP THE WHINGE WALL

  The wall of North Ifreann is forty-eight thousand hands high. The height is measured in hands (four inches) because it was meant to keep out unicorns, who are also measured in hands.

  The wall is made of lava stones, which are overgrown in a thin black moss that makes the wall as slippery as a freshly resurfaced ice rink. Legend (and Gary) says that a euro coin dropped from the top of the wall will take a whole human minute to land at the bottom. It’s a long way down. And then you’re out a euro, so don’t ever do this.

  Some of the stones used to construct the wall are enchanted with leprechaun spells, so they have a tiny but annoying power, which makes mounting the wall quite tedious.

  “Some o’ the stones bite,” explained Gary, chugging yet another (his fifth? sixth?) Irn-Bru of the evening. “Some’ll boke* on ya, which is foul. Many folks lost a good few fingers. But by far, the worst part of the wall is . . . the whinge-in’.”

  It turns out that many of the stones in the wall complain, or whinge in Scottish slang. This gives the wall its nickname: the Whinge Wall.

  “They’ll be whinging about their miserable job being rocks in a wall, but ye gotta stick yer foot right in their stupid mouth, then jump out before they bite ya,” explained Gary. “The stones don’t love being part of a wall, so that explains all the whinging. Don’t listen to ’em. I don’t like my job neither, but you don’t hear me whingin’ about it.”

  Gary went around and picked up each member of our team and considered their weight for a moment. To say that Gary was ten times stronger than Log might be an underestimate. He set us all back down in a line, from heaviest to lightest, doing some kind of math in his head.

  From a filthy sack, Gary pulled out some ropes and hooks. He began to fasten the ropes around our mid-sections, tethering us together. Log, being solid muscle, was at the top of the line. Following her were Lily, Rí, me, then Dooley (handcuffed to me), then Figs at the end. I did not like the fact that Dooley would be below me on the climb, especially when I was in a kilt.

  “You can’t hoist me up the wall in handcuffs! This is unethical!” Dooley complained.

  “Quit yer whing in’!” I said, using my new favorite verb.

  Gary’s claws were shaking as he fastened the ropes around my middle. Now that it was happening, I had deep reservations about Gary being our coyote. He didn’t seem up to the task in any way. And he was so, so twitchy.

  “This may seem like an obvious question, but why exactly do we need a werewolf to get up the wall? Is it the claws, or . . . some talent that Gary hasn’t yet displayed? There must be something I’m missing, right?” I whispered to Figs.

  “The claws help, for sure,” said Figs. “Very few creatures have claws that will take a deeper bite into the Whinge Wall than the werewolf. But the Scottish werewolf turns out to be one of the only creatures that can climb the wall, and the main reason is: attitude.”

  “Attitude?” I repeated, confused.

  “Aye,” said Figs. “And I’m not even sure it’s the werewolf part that matters. Being Scottish is the key. The Scots take no muck off of anybody. They’re ready to fight and kill for any reason or no reason at all. Scots are the only thing that can make it over the wall because, well—who would stop them? They’ll give you a Glasgow smile across yer mug as soon as look at ya. Poor Gary. Just a product of his environment.”

  Figs gestur
ed toward Gary, who was cracking his knuckles, ready for a fight, a wild, faraway look in his sad green eyes. He had tossed away his last can of Irn-Bru and was now having a swig off of something called Buckfast Tonic, which is a strong wine with caffeine for some Scottish reason.

  I noticed that under the bits of fur, Gary’s human face had two upturned scars by the corners of his mouth (a street-fighting scar called the Glasgow smile). While I was noticing, Gary polished off a second bottle of Buckfast in record time.

  “YOU CAN NAEEE KILL THE GARYWOLF! NAE KILL THE GARYWOLF!” screamed Gary, with a sadness in his eyes that I will never be able to fully convey to you. My young heart broke. Poor Gary, trying to do right by his mum. Trying to work on his recreational guitar playing. Trying to be a decent werewolf, but caught up in an endless cycle of unemployment, violence, Irn-Bru, and low self-esteem.

  The reason that Gary the Werewolf was uniquely qualified to get us over the wall is simply because Gary’s life is violent nihilistic tilt at every available windmill.

  (Note: In the intense wave of sadness that washed over my mind, I flashed back to Pierre the far darrig. He was still a prisoner of the Free Men of the Pole, some of whom had eaten Dooley’s toes. It’s likely Pierre was still playing dead in a stocking high in the snowy steeps. I really would go back for him at some later date, after all of this was settled and Captain de Valera was safe again. I’m certain I would return for him! And I will! Poor thing. I would put a pin in this for now, but certainly NEVER FORGET PIERRE! Probably never! Pinning this idea for now, but certainly not something I will forget soon.)

  What was I writing about?

  Oh, right: Gary was breaking my heart and apparently about to lead us up a slick forty-eight-thousand-hands-high wall of complaining, barfing rocks. Gary was amped to the gills on multiple cans of Irn-Bru and a fortified wine that was adding to his remarkable Scottishness. If a werewolf could then turn into something more frightening than itself, Gary would have at this moment. His eye that was not under a Band-Aid was twitching from all the caffeine.

  “Thank ye, beefie,” said Freya, lightly digging her claws into my biceps. “Gary’s a good boy, and keep in mind, in werewolf years, he’s only five.”

  Oooof. That was a genuine bummer. Werewolf years are approximate to dog years, so Gary was only thirty-five years old. This was really the most distressing news of the day because he looked like a badly preserved fifty-five to sixty years old.

  Gary stepped toward the wall, eyeing it like an old foe. “Me claws will find purchase. I’ll be doin’ most all the work. The best ye can do is resist the urge to help me. My motto: No whingin, no mingers, or our tatties are over the side.*

  “Figs, yer at the coo’s tail,† so no shape-shifting into one of yer big nasty forms,” added Gary. “I can nae pull the weight of your biggies!”

  “I’ll nae try to shape-shift,” said Figs, shrugging, “but as ye know, it’s not my decision!”

  “More than anything, all of you: Keep the heid,” said Gary, meaning keep your head about you.

  Everyone nodded except Dooley, who sniffed. I poked him with my nice umbrella right in his bony shin, then I instantly felt bad as I watched him hop on his Christmas-wrapped foot. (Seriously, the Free Men would barely even have gotten any meat off of Dooley’s toes, except maybe the big one. Did they put wing sauce on them? Do they even have access to a deep fryer? This was a disgusting puzzle that would haunt me for years to come.)

  Gary crouched, burped out Irn-Bru, and took a massive leap up into the air that yanked our charm bracelet of heroes and villains behind him thirty meters up the wall.

  There was an ear-splitting crack as his claws cut into the lava stones. My chin smacked against the wall and I bit my tongue. I was about to yelp, but I did not want to be cut loose for whinging.

  Before I could recover, Gary leaped again, tugging us all behind him like potatoes on a string.

  The ride was dreadful. The passengers on the rope below me weren’t that heavy per se, just Dooley and Figs, but the handcuffs connecting me to Dooley were starting to cut a mark into my wrist.

  We continued up like this for a bit. It was not a graceful climb. Most if not all parts of my body would be injured on the ride. We were making brisk upward progress until we met our first whinging rock. I was not prepared for how passive-aggressive these rocks could be.

  “Oh, hi. Don’t even worry about me, human guy,” said the whinging rock, with his sad rock face. The rock took a bite into my sporran, holding me there. Through his clenched teeth he complained ad nauseam.

  “Did you know that I was carved and stuck here as a child. Imagine: as a child. Wish I’d gotten to be at Mum’s funeral, but you can’t win ’em all. It’s fine because I never really met her.”

  Oh boy. This rock was a real bummer. I tried to pull my sporran free, but his teeth had a terrific grip, despite his whinging.

  “Don’t ye listen to that whingin’ minger!” howled Gary from above.

  “Go, go on up. Leave me here!” mumbled the rock with a mouthful of sporran. “I should have been dead by now anyway. Maybe I am? Maybe being part of this wall is punishment for some crimes I did in a past life. Why is this me instead of you? This could have been either of us. Ah, go on with ya. LEAVE ME HERE. Leave me here to die!”

  The rock wept, soaking my sporran with tears and moss snot. Ugh.

  “PAY NAE MIND TO THE WHINGIN’!” howled Gary. “Get yerself free, Boyle, or I’ll cut ye loose right now!”

  I did not want to be cut loose. I unclicked the metal hooks of my sporran. I loved that sporran, but I couldn’t let it hold us all back with this rock, who made some decent points. That’s the real danger of the Whinge Wall—not all of the complaints are far-fetched, and some of them hit home.

  We pressed upward for some time, my nice umbrella cutting a mark into my side, the handcuffs into my wrist.

  By the time we reached the very top, three of my ribs were cracked from the rope and one from my nice umbrella poking into me. I should have jettisoned the umbrella, but as I had vowed to get it back, I could not part with it again.

  By the top of the wall we had escaped complaints from many of the rocks; gripes about the weather, about the moss growing on their faces, but mostly about politics. If you’ve ever been to a family gathering with an uncle who is underinformed and overopinionated: that’s what climbing the Whinge Wall is like. Direct quotes from some of these rocks were:

  “The weegees are very fine people who love Tir Na Nog more than other faerie folk.”

  “Unicorns should have to carry papers that say they are jerks.”

  “The only good far darrig is the one cooking in your stewpot.”

  “Leprechauns are thieves.” (This one is probably true, no argument here.)

  “Queen Moira’s plans to make humans into sausages was NOT EXTREME ENOUGH.”

  It was a dizzying, awful ride up the wall—but it was the ideas I heard on the way up that really made me queasy.

  * Scottish for vomit.

  * No complaining, no dirty people, or our potatoes will be gone. This makes sense to Scottish people and werewolves.

  † Scottish for the end, as in a cow’s tail.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE DEVIL’S PINCUSHION

  A top the wall, Gary disconnected the ropes that had bound us together.

  Everyone was battered and bruised, reeling from the terrible complaints of rocks who probably haven’t read an actual book in years.

  Log and Rí licked paws, cleaning the moss out of their pads. We crossed over the top section of the wall, which was made with broken glass set into the mortar—one final low-tech discouragement to visitors.

  My knee protectors saved the day. I was carrying Figs on my back and pulling Dooley along by the handcuffs.

  I missed my sporran, especially because it ties together with my beret so nicely.

  We peered over the lip of the inner part of the wall to see North Ifreann. True to its name in
the language of the faeries, it looked like a fiery hellscape—a place where the wee folk are sent to pay for their crimes. I could hear screams coming from three distinct points in the city.

  North Ifreann is a pit both literally and figuratively. Fish oil smoke puffed out from a thousand chimneys down below. The city is a puzzle of alleyways zigzagging up toward the Shousting Dome in the center of town.

  Something big (harpies?) were flying about in the air, but they were only visible by the soot they displaced as they passed.

  From above, the city looks remarkably like a human skull, with the Shousting Dome as the skull cap.

  “North Ifreann. Nae a nice place to live, nae a nice place to visit. Too scary for the Gary. This is where I leave ye,” said Gary. “I hope ye’ll be as good as yer word, beefie. I want to be able to go back to human Scotland, without a bunch of hassle about: Hey, what about all these evidence bones with your bite radius on ’em, Gary? Where are the rest of the bodies, Gary! Look, we got yer DNA, Gary! Confess, Gary, confess! Blah blah blah . . . I’m so sick of it all playing out in me heid over and over!”

  “Right! I shall, Gary,” I said, now a bit nervous about what I had promised. “You’ll never have to worry about that silly stuff again. I’m on top of it.”

  (Note: I would have to remember to really contact my counterparts in Glasgow and try to get a pardon for whatever Gary had actually done, some of which sounded QUITE serious, included the eating of humans in Girvan, which in Ireland would be eighteen months in the Joy Vaults.)

  I would not forget this promise, as I would probably never forget Pierre, up in the Steps!