We ran together toward the ruins of the O’Malley farm.
“Where is Gráinne when we need her? Where is she?” I called into the open air.
“And you,” I shot Paul with my poorly timed judgment. “I thought you left me!”
Paul stumbled on a rock and gritted his teeth with pain.
“I never left you, Maeve.”
“I saw you with Patricia again. Then you went away. Silent.” I looked back again.
“Jesus Maeve. Ya have ta trust me.” He winced. “I had no idea what Patricia wanted. Until she asked me to meet a colleague of hers. To view his ancient relics.” He shook his head as if to shed the memory of his gullibility.
We shuffled along the road toward the ruin, looking back every second.
“I thought it might help her, in her job and to, you know, move on. When I got to the location, she wasn’t there. It was Fergal and his men.” He gestured his head back to Fergal. “He tricked her into luring me there.”
“She took you to Fergal?” My voice oozed with judgment as my eyes popped out of my head.
The decrepit cottage welcomed us as the warmth and safety of home washed through me.
“She had no idea what she was doing,” he said in her defense. “Still doesn’t know what she’s done.”
We staggered into the yard and headed toward the back of the ruin, searching for a place to hide.
A seething anger rose in me.
Fergal was a madman who wouldn’t stop until he stole everything from us— Gráinne’s treasures, the land, her history.
And now, he’d stolen my faith in Paul. I would take that back first.
My brain shattered with the shriek of Fergal’s voice.
“It’s bloody empty!”
His snarled screams pierced through the sanctity of the graveyard and shot into our brains.
“Where the fook is the gold? Fookin’ wild goose chase!”
His voice grew closer. His rants pursued us like dogs on a hunt.
Blind with fury, he slashed at nettles and weeds with her sword, as he barreled toward the cottage.
My grip tightened on Paul’s hand as we rounded into the backyard of the ruin.
“How can that be?” I looked into Paul’s eyes. “She’s here. I’m sure of it. She told me.”
Paul spun me and pushed me toward a mound of stones at the far end of the yard.
The rocks waited, for what looked like hundreds of years, to be built into a stone wall. Moss grew out of every crevice and lichens stained each surface of the pile. Rusty farm equipment littered the surrounding ground like decomposing carcasses with reddish-brown metal for bones.
Just as he gave me a final shove to the top of the stone pile, Fergal pounced on him.
I scrambled up to safety, knocking loose stones on my way up. My foot slipped, again and again, casting stones off the pile, cascading them down onto Paul and Fergal.
As I crouched and found my balance at the top, I was shocked to see the corner of an ornate chest or a crate, exposed in the stone pile from the fallen rocks.
My eyes widened farther when the glint of the sword blinded me as Fergal raised it against Paul.
Before the scream left my mouth, the wind blasted from all directions. The darkened fury filled the yard but Fergal was only fueled by it. He swung the sword at Paul, missing him by hairs.
“Where is she? Where are her treasures?” He yelled like a wild person as the wind spun into a black funnel.
He raised his sword again and I chucked stones at him hoping to connect with his head. He flinched to avoid being hit and swung at Paul. Just as the blade made contact, I flew off the stone pile at Fergal and was whisked into the black funnel.
It was Gráinne. And all her strength and fury wrapped me and whipped me into a goddess of revenge, hell-bent on avenging my love. Just as she was.
Like two ghostly banshees from a mystical realm, we tore at Fergal with blazing eyes and scowls of destruction.
He dropped the sword by Paul as a cowardly whimper spewed from his quivering lips. He shrank from us and raised his arms to shield himself. The look of terror on his face proved the force we had created against him.
My vision tracked Paul with the focus of a hawk as I squinting through the dizzying squall. I reeled back in my assault on Fergal as I stared in horror, as Paul dropped to his knees holding a gaping wound in his shoulder—the exact location Hugh took the hit from the aggressive leader of the MacMahons five hundred years earlier. And died.
My terror at the sight of Paul keeling over sent screams of panic from my lips. Gráinne’s agitation became wild again as the torrent raged and she took full human form in the funnel.
Her blue cloaked and long black hair flapped around us as she held my shoulder and bored her eyes into mine. Wasting no time, she pushed her way into my mind, connecting to my history and knowledge while adding missing links and a new clarity that brightened my vision.
A piece of the sequence she layered into my being reminded me of the scene on her galley when Hugh was murdered. It was part of the ancient truths she past along to me.
It wasn’t the MacMahon warrior who slain Hugh. The warrior was the evil one who gave the command. To a fellow clansman—with the same tattoo on his arm as Fergal.
I shuddered at the memory.
She was right. It was another man who turned on Hugh, under the warrior’s command. And now, that other man stood before us. He had turned on Paul and hit him with the sword, in the exact same way. Fergal was the warrior’s minion.
Gráinne stormed toward Fergal with the war cry of a banshee. The sound of her screech shattered my mind and scarred my ears with unearthly sounds of crushing metal, exploding bombs, and mangled cries of pain. The sickening wave of desperate assault forced my legs into a sprint as I raced along with her.
Fergal scrambled back, eyes wide with shock but still baring his teeth as he spat at the ground in our direction.
In a flash of light, we rolled over him like a steam engine and he fell, arms flailing like a child warding off evil spirits. He jumped to his feet and ran across the yard, weaving through rotting farm equipment, slipping on cow splats.
Gráinne came around to my side again and we raged toward him. This time, he turned and held his ground, shooting us with a condescending glare through squinted eyes.
Gráinne lowered her shoulders and I did the same. We bowled him over with the force of our strike and his heels kicked up as he went flying.
His head struck the stony base of a water pump and his face went white. A rusty shod of steel poked through his shoulder as he lay impaled by the thin rib of a hay cutter’s carcass.
He lifted his head enough to find the source of his pain and grimaced as he absorbed the notion of a metal spike protruding from his body. He whimpered like a child and looked to us for help. His eye lids fluttered and his head wobbled. Like a drunkard, his eyes went in and out of focus as his head fell, hitting off the stone a second time. He was out cold.
Gráinne swirled into the black funnel again and moved higher, spreading out across the yard. The gray and black haze darkened the yard adding new levels of fear and sorrow to the area—the moment in time.
The shroud of mist opened near Paul, allowing the low light of the dull skies to shine upon him and I inhaled sharply as the original murderous scene tried to replay itself right before my very eyes.
I raced to his side, imagining the worst, as he lay bleeding. His shirt oozed with thick, dark red blood. Terror ravaged through me as I struggled for a better look.
“Paul. Oh my god.”
He was alive.
It didn’t appear to be a lethal wound.
My shaking fingers searched around the site of the injury. A shudder of relief buckled through me, unhinging every joint, as I assured myself he wouldn’t die.
He lifted his head to me.
“It’s okay. Just a scratch. No arteries hit.” He squinted his eyes and bared his teeth. “We just need to c
over it to stop the bleeding.”
I looked all around me for a solution, praying for a first aid kit to materialize.
“I don’t know what to do. Paul!” My voice choked with tears as my fingers trembled at the bloody tear in his shirt.
My eyes searched around the yard again and focused on Fergal’s still form.
I stroked Paul’s cheek with the back of my hand. “Wait. I know.”
I raced over to Fergal and nudged his leg with my foot, checking for signs of wakefulness. He remained motionless, still unconscious.
I pulled his jacket open to expose his waist and saw what I’d hoped for—a belt. Fumbling with the buckle, I cringed and dry-heaved from the foul stench that rose off him. I’d never smelled a corpse before but was pretty sure that was what it would be like.
Once the buckle was open, I pulled and the belt slid out from under him. I fell back as it flapped into freedom and then ran to Paul.
The wound needed to be covered first.
I pulled off my jacket and unbuttoned my blouse, popping the last buttons free in my haste. Paul winced as I wrapped the pulpy mess with the soft cotton and tied it. I worked the belt around his shoulder, just above the wound and laced the buckle. “Okay, on three. One. Two….” And I pulled the belt tight.
Paul tossed his head back and arched his spine.
“Ach!” The cry of pain filled the yard and echoed through the air as he clenched his teeth to stifle any more sound from escaping. His breath huffed in and out of his nose as he worked through the pain.
I stood back with my hands covering my mouth, eyes wide.
The stain of blood on the white fabric stopped growing and the blood all around the area darkened. Nothing fresh came through.
“Can you move?” I looked back at Fergal to be sure he was still down.
The dark mist and wind calmed into a subtle hover.
“Yeah. I think so.” Paul sat up and shook his head. The color returned to his face and he swallowed. “I’m okay. Couple stitches and I’ll be good.”
The sight of his injury flashed in my eyes as I considered more than a couple stitches as the solution.
“We need to get out of here,” I said as I flinched toward the sound of movement behind us.
“I don’t think so.”
Fergal’s voice filled my soul with another flash of terror. He held his hand over his impaled wound by his collarbone as small amounts of blood dripped from the site. His other hand gripped her sword.
His face blanched as he looked at the blood on Paul’s shirt and the sword wobbled in his trembling hands.
“Fergal! Stop!” A commanding voice sailed from around the side of the ruined cottage.
My eyes grew wide as I stared, waiting for him to reveal himself.
It wasn’t possible.
He’d left me. He’d abandoned any hope of an alliance when he drove off.
Rory stormed around the corner and stopped, frozen, as he took in the sight of Paul and me, covered in blood. He launched at Fergal and slammed into his body with the force of a wrecking ball.
Fergal flew off his feet and landed with a heavy thud.
Gráinne’s sword spun in the air and fell to the ground.
Cringing through the added trauma to his already-battered body, Fergal turned to Rory and shouted, “Defector! Yer scum!”
Rory was on him in an instant and connected his boot to Fergal’s ribs. He grabbed Gráinne’s sword out of the grass and held it at Fergal’s throat.
My breath sucked in as time froze.
Rory postured over Fergal like a battle-seasoned soldier. His black boot held Fergal down as the outstretched sword shot out like an extension of his own arm. His comfort with the weapon took me aback as his confidence oozed out of his stance and his control over the situation.
Desire rose in me.
Rory made everything rise in me—anger, shame, passion—and that is what drove me crazy.
Paul was my heart, yet Rory had a control over me I couldn’t shake.
And he came back.
To stop Fergal.
But maybe more. Maybe to work together, as an ally.
My eyes opened wider with hope.
I bit my lip and looked back at Paul as he pushed through his discomfort. I bit harder to punish myself for my distraction by Rory. I tasted blood and pulled back into Paul’s world.
My misconstrued abandonment by Paul had taken such a deep hold that it left me spinning, and my heart needed a chance to realign to its original intent.
“Howya, Maeve?” Rory’s light, arrogant tone echoed in the back of my already-brimming mind.
Chapter Eighteen
Tomb Raider
The blood gutter ran down the middle of the heavy blade and pointed straight at Fergal’s throat as Rory stared down its length with keen focus on the jugular.
Fergal fidgeted under the pressure of the threat but Rory turned away with boredom drooping his eyes, as he targeted Paul and me with sharp interest.
“What the hell happened here?” His mouth fell open.
Fergal flinched and Rory wobbled the sword at his neck without hesitation.
“Don’t you move,” he grumbled through clenched teeth and a backward glance.
Rory stepped closer to us and reached to the ground for my jacket. He passed it to me and turned away as I wiggled into it. Shame burned my cheeks as I took a second to care enough that I’d been standing there in my bra.
He turned back around and searched me up and down for wounds or damage of any kind. Once satisfied I was unharmed, he dropped to his knees to check Paul’s condition.
Anger brewed in my veins as my temperature rose to boiling.
Instead of feeling gratitude for his assistance, I was pissed. I couldn’t get my head around why he kept showing up and getting involved.
“I thought I told you to stay away from me!” I blasted at Rory.
“Or it would be seen as a hostile threat?” he mimicked me. “I think you need me right about now. The rules must bend in times of war, ya know.”
Paul pushed himself upright, masking his pain with a hardened jaw and steely eyes, but his battered condition betrayed his efforts.
Rory poked around my blouse-tourniquet, nodding at his understanding of what became of my shirt, and inspected the wound.
“We have ta get you ta hospital,” he said to Paul.
“I’m okay.” Paul pushed himself up to standing. “It can wait. It’s superficial.”
Rory raised his eyebrows at him. “Yeah, right.”
“We’re so close to finishing this.” He winced as he tried to move his arm. “We need to finish this. Now.”
Rory looked back at Fergal sulking by the rock pile.
I glanced at his pathetic form and silently thanked god Rory came when he did. Even if he did defy my order.
I wondered if he’d decided to work together as allied clans. The thought made my eyes open wider as I considered the possibilities. It was actually a little surprising to me how intriguing the concept was.
“What made you come back, Rory?” My arms hung by my sides as I looked at him with a slight tilt to my head.
“Ach. Ya get ta me, Maeve. All up in my head.” He swirled his hand around his head and squinted his eyes at me in annoyance. “I figured I had to do what was right. Not just for me clan. Right for Ireland and the generations ta come. It’s not up to me to decide.” He pressed his lips to the side. “It’s up ta the Tribal Council. Like you said.”
I stared at Rory in shock.
He’d taken on a bigger view of our roles. Bigger than I’d even seen.
My breathing slowed and went deeper as I gazed at him. He appeared different to me now. But I wasn’t sure how.
I pulled my eyes away and stared at the ground.
Then on to Fergal, to be sure he wasn’t moving or hatching any sinister plans.
My eyes moved from Fergal’s slump to the rock pile where I’d exposed the corner of a decorated cr
ate.
“There!” I pointed to intricate designs peeking out from the rock pile—hand-carved Celtic swirls and knots.
It was the small edge of something much bigger, like the tip of an iceberg.
“In the rock pile. Look at that!” I moved closer.
I scrambled up the stones and tossed rocks away, exposing the corner further. Stone after stone, I uncovered medieval history, hidden in plain sight.
Working along the edge, I pushed away the rocks that concealed the length of the enormous decorated box. Masterful craftsmanship etched the symbol I’d seen at the abbey monolith onto the front end of the container. My eyes went wide as my heart beat out of my chest.
The more stones I moved, the more I knew what I’d discovered.
The stone pile revealed to me the answer to the ancient mystery of Gráinne Ní Mháille’s final resting place.
Protected among family, for generations. In the backyard of the O’Malley home. Safe from grave robbers or any other threats. Gráinne Ní Mháille lay hidden in the stone pile for hundreds of years.
The air swirled and churned with gray and black haze. The briny mist filled my senses with fresh awareness of the discovery.
The three men stared at me, each processing the find in their own way, but all mouths agape.
Fergal wriggled in for a better look.
“Don’t you move!” Rory commanded, stopping Fergal short, and he stepped to the stone pile himself for closer inspection.
Paul ambled over, supporting his injured arm by the elbow and stood taller as he gazed upon the crate. Each new breath brought more color to his face and light to his eyes.
“We need to move it.” I spoke to the stone pile. “We’ve got to bring it to the tomb. It’s her proper resting place with Hugh.”
Rising angst quickened my breath with the thought of completing our quest. I’d dreamed of this moment but never actually believed I would lay eyes on her sarcophagus.
It was up to me now. To take care of her with honor and respect. I prayed I could do this.
Fergal’s foul voice permeated the air, making my lip curl.
“There’s nothing in the fookin’ crypt. You’re all fools.” He spat at the ground.
Ignoring him, I turned to Paul and Rory.
Inish Clare Page 22
