Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series Book 3)

by Cindy Brandner

  “You owe him?” she asked, feeling that she sometimes did not understand either Jamie or Casey very well at all.

  “Aye, I owe him, much as it galls me even to say it. He was more than fair—he walked away when ye were vulnerable an’ he could have pressed that to his advantage. He didn’t have to do that, an’ I can only imagine how much it cost him. So,” he breathed out heavily, “if ye honestly feel he’s in danger, if ye think these dreams of yers are tryin’ to tell ye that he needs help, then I suppose we have to do whatever we can to help the man. So yes, I’ll come to the witch’s wee cottage with ye, an’ I’ll lay my hands on ye if that’s what ye need from me. But,” he glared down at her, eyes lit with black flame, “I think it’s fockin’ mad what the two of ye are doin’ an’ I swear, woman, if anything happens to ye…” he shook his head as words failed him.

  She drew him down to her, cradling his head to her breast. “Nothing will happen to me as long as you’re there with me. Finola said you are my anchor and I know it for truth.”

  He moved his face up toward her own, his eyes no longer smoky with anger but dark with feeling.

  “I need yer hands on me too, Jewel, now an’ always—an’ if…”

  “Shh,” she touched her mouth to his own, silencing his fear with the warmth of her touch, the security that her own body provided his, a connection to life itself and a reassurance that this would always exist between them. For it always had, this heat and light and fire, a sustenance that fed them and bound them together each time until the web was so tight she often felt she didn’t breathe fully until Casey came home at night.

  She settled herself under him opening to him and he buried his face in her neck, whiskers rasping like stiffened velvet, causing her to gasp and arch up against him. He sighed softly, and in the language of his skin and her own, she knew that though he had agreed, he was afraid of the deal he had struck.

  Chapter Forty-six

  March 1974

  All the Colors of the Rainbow…

  To say the drive to Finola’s cottage was fraught with a white silence would be to vastly understate the tense and rather grim mood that surrounded both Pamela and Casey. They had discussed themselves blue about the probability of this ‘focking plunge down the rabbit-hole’, as Casey was calling it, amounting to anything that could be quantified on the scale of hard, cold reality.

  His wife, during one of these conversations, had given him the delicate arch of one sooty eyebrow and said, “What is reality though? In the time of the Greeks, they only saw a few colors, rainbows were tri-colored. Did that mean that all the colors we can perceive now didn’t exist? Or that we merely were not equipped to see them yet? And that there aren’t dozens more colors that we can’t see now, but will someday?”

  Casey suspected that the foray into a discussion of the Greeks and their color blindness was merely a diversionary tactic and refused to be thus distracted. He had then been treated to an exegesis on inward evolution, and being tuned to the ‘finer’ vibrations of the universe. She wound this up with a tart, ‘a man who had a ghost save his life ought to be less of an obstinate ox in his thinking.’

  They had been touchy with each other for the next few days, though they had discussed the drugs that Finola would be using on Pamela—aconite and hemlock. Looking them up in one of Pamela’s green-stained herbal primers had done little to soothe Casey’s worries on that front.

  “They induce a sort of delirium that will allow me to leave my body, so to speak,” she had said calmly, whilst spooning pureed apples and oatmeal into their son’s mouth.

  “Did the good Lord in all His wisdom not hand ye a dose of fear an’ common sense before ye landed in the world, woman?” Casey had asked in exasperation.

  She shrugged, making plane noises to encourage Conor to open his wee mouth for the last spoonful. “It’s been done many times before. Finola is well learned in the ways of medicines and herbs. She won’t let anything happen to me. Witches did it for centuries to induce the sense of flying.”

  Casey had thrown his hands up at that particular bit of logic and gone out to feed Paudeen and to work on the barn. Then he’d gone for a long walk and smoked far too many cigarettes for a man who had quit months before.

  What it came down to was Jamie, and Pamela’s complete belief that his life was hanging in the balance of all this occult mumbo-jumbo, and that was where, Casey admitted ruefully, his wife had him over the turnstile. He owed the man, for Jamie had given him back his life in a few angry and ultimately clarifying moments.

  All of this had brought them here, on this March night, to the far reaches of the Kirkpatrick land. They had to walk the last couple of miles, after leaving the car parked at the cypress gate. There was no road into the cottage, and indeed Casey wondered if they were going to be able to find it at all in the dank twilight.

  “Perhaps ye have to be drugged ahead of time to actually find the place,” Casey said, shivering and clutching Pamela’s hand tighter in his own. She squeezed back and after contemplating the fork in the narrow pathway that extended ahead of them, chose the left-hand option.

  They had to walk single file after that, the trees clustered tightly around them in their spare spring garb. Oak trees, dense with tightly closed buds, hissed in the night. The air was chill with mist, and the sounds of the city did not penetrate here. It might have been another world entirely, far removed from the small battered streets of the city below. Though he was well used to the country and as comfortable as any man amongst the fields, trees, and hedgerows, Casey found that Jamie’s land unsettled him. It was almost as if it belonged to an entirely different sphere, an enchanted fairy hill where one could disappear and re-emerge several years later, confused and confounded by the changes of the world around.

  The path they trod continued to narrow until Casey had the sense that the trees limbs were trying to ensnare them. Certainly he had enough twigs in his hair to testify to it.

  They might have missed the cottage if it weren’t for the flickering light that shone from its windows. It was low and built partly into a small hillside, so that it seemed an organic outgrowth of the bracken and the trees and stones that surrounded it.

  A small puff of wind, chill and thick with the scent of decaying plant matter, blew into their faces.

  “Is that a whiff of brimstone?” Casey asked, only half in jest.

  “It’s dill,” Pamela said in the matter of fact tone that was starting to annoy the hell out of Casey.

  “Are ye not a wee bit frightened by the thought of committin’ what amounts to black magic?”

  “It’s not black unless you use it to harm others,” she said, raising her hand to knock on the door. It swung open before her knuckles could make contact.

  “Good, I see ye’ve managed to convince yer man to help,” said the small figure in the doorway.

  Pamela went in without hesitation and Casey wondered just how well acquainted she and Jamie’s grandmother had become. He had a feeling that Jamie wouldn’t be any more impressed than he himself was by this friendship.

  The lintel was old and low, the cottage must date back to at least the sixteen hundreds, though it was obvious to him it had been modified in the last decade or so. Still, the original bones were in evidence enough that his builder’s eye could date it to within a few decades. He ducked in behind Pamela, closing the door against the spooky atmosphere of the night.

  He eyed the woman directly, a challenge in his stare that clearly stated he would brook no harm coming to his wife and that he was here to prevent such a thing from happening, the woman’s grandson be damned.

  She eyed him just as directly in return. Yes, she looked a woman fully capable of both the knowledge and implementation of dark arts. The cottage, lit only by the fire, was warm and seemed far too snug against the chill night to be the stage for this insane act to which they were
all committed. The kitchen was the center of the home, with the ancient hearth against the south wall. Near the fire was a bed—undoubtedly the scene of the sacrifice, he thought.

  “Come and sit,” Finola said, and Casey realized he’d forgotten his manners in the face of coming events.

  He put his hand out to shake the woman’s own, but she took it and held it between both of hers rather than shaking it. Casey felt an odd vibration where her skin met his—a heat as though energy were crossing from her to him and then looping back again. She merely continued to hold on, her fine fingertips searching the web of lines that crisscrossed his palms.

  She tilted her head to the side and nodded. “Interesting.”

  Casey cocked a brow. “What’s interestin’?”

  “The lines of yer hand. They’re a wee bit odd. I’ve only ever run across one other set like yer own. But never mind, we’re not here to discuss yer future.” She let go of his hand suddenly and turned to Pamela.

  “Ye’ll need to drink the tea right off, and then we’ll get the herbs on ye.” She handed Pamela a steaming mug, which she drank down quickly, not even flinching at the heat.

  “Will it hinder things,” Casey asked, seating himself on a low stool by the fire, “if I don’t particularly believe in all this…” he made a gesture with his hands to indicate that he didn’t have words to describe the situation in which he found himself.

  “Ye don’t have to believe. Ye merely need to be here. Ye’ll hear a great deal about this sort of thing in scientific studies, where they try to put it under a microscope in a lab, but it’s been practiced for thousands of years. Some people are more open to it than others, an’ some have a natural talent for it. Yer wife falls into both those categories.”

  “An’ how can ye know that?” Casey asked, a suspicion growing in him.

  “She’s done well on the last two tries, and I trust it’ll be even easier with you here this time.”

  “The last two tries?” Casey gave Pamela a look that said volumes in both content and context.

  Pamela merely shrugged and pulled her sweater off over her head, and then proceeded, to Casey’s immense consternation, to unbutton her blouse.

  “What the hell are ye after doin’, woman?” he asked, standing and blocking any view of her with his own body.

  “She has to be naked for this,” Jamie’s grandmother said calmly. “The ointment needs to be rubbed on bare skin.”

  Casey, quelling a desire to pinch himself, asked, “An’ what am I meant to be doing?”

  “Nothing just yet, other than calmin’ yer nerves. Yer purpose here is to keep her safe, an’ to bring her back should ye sense something that ought not to be there in the psychic landscape.”

  “Aye, an’ how am I to know what should be there an’ what shouldn’t?”

  “Trust me,” Finola said, “ye’ll know if somethin’ is wrong. It’ll present as a dark presence an’ there’s no mistakin’ the feel of such a thing.”

  Despite himself, Casey felt a chill snake down his backbone.

  “Now, do ye know what I mean by a dark presence?” Finola asked, pouring the same steaming concoction she had given Pamela into a mug for him.

  “No, I’m afraid I’ve left my ‘Field Guide to Demons and Malevolent Fairies,’ at home,” Casey said sarcastically.

  “Yer a wee bit skeptical for a man who’s seen a ghost or two in his own time,” she retorted dryly.

  Casey cast a sharp glance at Pamela, but she shook her head. Which begged the question of how this woman knew he’d any familiarity with ghosts.

  “Drink yer tea,” Finola said, handing him a red pottery mug that had stars and moons etched into its round-bellied frame.

  “What’s in it?” Casey asked, sniffing suspiciously.

  “Eye of newt, wing of bat. What else?” she said, and Casey smiled despite himself.

  He sipped it cautiously, but tasted only the green of fresh herbs with a hint of exoticism lent by a bit of cinnamon.

  “Why does it have to be Pamela? Why can’t I do it?” he asked, though he feared he knew the answer well enough.

  “Because he loves her, so her hold on him is greater than anyone else’s. It’s a slim chance this will work, but she’s the only one with odds in her favor.”

  He merely nodded, uncomfortably aware that his face had noticeably tightened at the mention of Jamie’s love for Pamela. The fact that it was the bald truth did little to alleviate the anger that roiled low in his belly over the idea of that love.

  He took another sip of the tea, tasting something dark and earthy now below the herbs and the cinnamon. He wouldn’t put it past the woman to drug the both of them witless. Ah well, in for a penny in for a focking pound, he thought, and took a large swallow.

  Casey turned his attention to his wife, watching her in the low firelight, and was struck by how even now, when fear gripped his innards as hard as a clenched fist, she took the breath from him with her beauty. To see her stand there limned in fire, with the old woman rubbing the ointment in broad strokes across the orchid white skin, her hair held up by her own hands, a curving shadow under each full breast… he shifted uncomfortably on the stool, but found he could not look away. Even after five years of marriage and countless nights spent in heat, in abandonment, in love he still was entranced by her and could understand why the man they were here to summon had never been able to let this woman go, and so had left instead.

  “Don’t turn yer thoughts from it, it’s why yer here, man—the hold your body has on hers. It’s love, but it’s the physical aspect too. Yer bound to her by a million threads, but this one is one of the strongest. ‘Tis at the center of the web and binds the two of you fast when other things have failed. Ye know it well enough. Ye’ve used it on her more than the once and she, in her own turn, has used it on you.”

  Casey looked up, chagrin written as clearly as the shape of flames on his face. “That transparent, am I?”

  He saw his wife and the old woman exchange a glance of female knowing as old as the hills. Women, they always bloody knew where they had you, and most times it was in a position of distinct disadvantage.

  Pamela bent down and kissed his forehead, leaving the acrid scent of herbs in her wake as she got into the bed. She settled on her back, the declicate rose-hue of her skin in sharp contrast with the dark blanket that now covered her from her shoulders down.

  Casey could feel the misgivings begin to build again. What the hell sort of dark forces might they be playing with here? He could be a starkly pragmatic man, but in matters such as this, where one was jumping into the murky world of spirits and astral travel… well, he, like any true Irishman, had his doubts about the wisdom of such a venture. Might they not stir up something they could not control, something angry and dark and—he wrenched his thoughts away from that particular direction, training his attention on his wife once again.

  She writhed slightly, the fire glistening along the curve of shoulder and neck, and moaned softly. Casey knew that particular sound all too well, and felt a hot surge of blood rise in him. But for whom was her body rising like that?

  “Don’t take it personal. It’s the drugs. Ye need to get in the bed with her.” The old woman raised an eyebrow at him. “Ye’ll need to take yer own clothing off as well.”

  It was Casey’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

  “Ye need to be skin to skin with her. It means a bit of the drugs will seep into yer own system, but I suspect yer not as susceptible to them as she is, so it’s not a danger.

  He cleared his throat and the old woman gave him a sardonic green eye, as if to say ‘I’ve seen plenty of naked men in my life, laddie,’ but she turned and he quickly shed his clothes, shivering despite the heat of the fire.

  He slid into the bed, glancing over his shoulder to be certain the old woman was still tur
ned away.

  Pamela’s body was like fire against his own, pungent with the herbs, slippery with the ointment. He couldn’t be near her this way and not get hard, not have the blood in his body rush toward her, seeking entry.

  She turned in his arms, restless, eyes open, pupils dilated until her eyes were almost black.

  She touched his face delicately, and looked at him as a blind woman might—through him rather than at him—and said in a soft voice, “Jamie?” For one mad moment, he thought the man was behind him.

  “Relax, close yer eyes an’ empty yer mind as well as ye can,” said the old woman, her voice much softer than its normal tone, almost hypnotic in its rhythm.

  She began to hum, something very old that stirred at the base of Casey’s spine, but which was oddly soothing at the same time. He closed his eyes as bid, and relaxed into the warmth of his wife’s body.

  The cottage around him seemed to slide away, though his mind sought to maintain the root of it, to ground some bit of himself in the here and now—the feel of the bed beneath him, the warmth of the fire against his back in contrast to the sudden and terrible cold of his wife’s body. But all he could see was a heavy grey mist that threatened to swallow him whole, to take his wife from the security of his arms. She felt less substantial already, as though she were becoming part of that mist.

  He peered through the fog, willing it to clear from his eyes, and suddenly there in the dark was a cold pair of green eyes, cutting as a shard of ice, staring back at him. Not his wife’s eyes, but a gaze with which he was all too familiar. He had no sense anymore of what might be real and what not and so it seemed only natural to reach out toward the hand that lay upon the blanket, long fingered and shaded a delicate blue.

  He took the hand, freezing and stiff, into his own and did not know if he held Pamela’s hand or Jamie’s. It looked like Jamie’s and yet how could it be? Jamie was thousands of miles away and there was an aura of being neither there nor here, but rather suspended in some twilit space that had no connection to life or the world with which he was familiar.