The Dark River

by John Twelve Hawks

  Two mercenaries wearing headsets stood in the alleyway. Someone had told them about Hollis and they were waiting. The older man raised a canister and shot chemical spray into Hollis’s eyes.

  The pain was incredible. It felt like his eyes were on fire. Hollis couldn’t see—couldn’t defend himself—as someone’s fist shattered his nose. Like a drowning man, he grabbed the attacker in front of him, and then jerked his upper body forward, giving the mercenary a head butt in the face.

  The first man fell onto the pavement, but the second man had his arm around Hollis’s neck and began choking him. Hollis bit the man’s hand. When he heard a scream, he grabbed the mercenary’s arm, forcing it downward, and then twisted it until it snapped.

  Blind. He was blind. Touching the rough brick wall beside him, he ran through his own darkness.

  19

  A round ten o’clock in the morning, Maya and the others passed through the city of Limerick. Gabriel drove slowly through the central shopping area, trying not to break any traffic laws. His cautiousness disappeared the moment they reached the countryside, and he stomped on the gas pedal. Their little blue car roared down a two-lane road, heading toward the west coast and the island of Skellig Columba.

  Normally Maya would have sat beside Gabriel so she could look down the road and anticipate any problems. But she didn’t want Gabriel glancing at her and interpreting the different expressions that passed across her face. During her brief attempt to live a normal life in London, the women in her office had often complained that their boyfriends never seemed to recognize their changing moods. Now she was dealing with a man who could do just that—and she was cautious of his power.

  For the trip across Ireland, Vicki sat in the front passenger seat. Alice and Maya were in back, separated by a shopping bag filled with crackers and bottled water. The bag was a necessary barrier. Ever since they had arrived in Ireland, Alice had wanted to sit close to Maya. Once she had extended her fingers and touched the outline of the throwing knife that Maya wore beneath her sweater. It was all too intimate, too close, and Maya preferred to keep her distance.

  Linden had leased the car with a credit card from one of his shell corporations registered in Luxembourg. He had purchased a cheap digital camera and plastic travel bags that read MONARCH TOURS—WE SEE THE WORLD. All these objects were props to make them look like tourists, but Vicki enjoyed having the camera. She kept saying, “Hollis would like this,” as she rolled down the window to take another picture.

  After stopping for gasoline in the town of Adare, they left the green farmland and followed a narrow road over the mountains. The treeless landscape reminded Maya of the Scottish Highlands; they passed rocks and brush and heather, a dash of purple rhododendrons growing near a drainage pipe.

  As they came over a ridge, they saw the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. “He’s there,” Gabriel whispered. “I know he’s there.” No one dared challenge him.

  MAYA HAD BEEN guarding Gabriel for several days, but they had both avoided an intimate conversation. She was surprised by the short haircut Gabriel had received in London. His shaved head made him look intense—almost severe—and she wondered if he was beginning to increase his powers as a Traveler. From the start, Gabriel seemed obsessed by the framed photograph he had seen at Tyburn Convent. He had insisted on going to Skellig Columba as soon as possible, and Linden could barely conceal his annoyance. The French Harlequin kept glancing at Maya as if she were a mother who had raised an unruly child.

  Gabriel had made a second demand once they began to organize a trip to Ireland. For the last two weeks, he had been living with some Free Runners on the South Bank, and he wanted to say goodbye to his new friends. “Maya can come in with me, but you stay away,” he told Linden. “You look like you’re going to kill somebody.”

  “If I have to,” Linden said. But he remained in the van when they reached Bonnington Square.

  The old house smelled like fried bacon and boiled potatoes. Three young men and a tough-looking teenage girl with short hair were eating supper in the front room. Gabriel introduced the Free Runners to Maya and she nodded to Jugger, Sebastian, Roland, and Ice. He told them that Maya was his friend and that they were both going to leave the city that evening.

  “You okay?” Jugger asked. “Anything we can do to help?”

  “Some people might come around asking about me. Tell them I met a girl and we’re going to the South of France.”

  “Right. Got that. Remember, you always got friends here.”

  Carrying his belongings in a cardboard box, Gabriel followed Maya back out to the van. They spent two days at a safe house near Stratford while Linden tried to get information about Skellig Columba. All he could learn on the Internet was that the island was originally the site of a sixth-century monastery founded by Saint Columba. The Irish saint, also known as Colum Cille, was an apostle to the pagan tribes in Scotland. In the early 1900s, the ruined buildings had been restored by an order of nuns called the Poor Clares. There was no ferry service to the island and the nuns did not welcome visitors.

  THEY CAME OUT of the mountains onto a coastal road that ran between a limestone cliff and the ocean. Gradually, the landscape widened out to a marshland. Peat cutters worked in a distant bog, digging out bricks of compressed grass and clover grown during the Ice Age.

  There were ponds and streams everywhere, and the road followed a winding river that emptied into a little bay. Rolling hills were on the north side of the bay, but they turned south to Portmagee, a fishing village facing a wharf and a low seawall. Two dozen houses were on the other side of the narrow road, and each reminded Maya of a child’s drawing of a face: gray slate hair, two upper windows for eyes, a central red door for a nose, and two lower windows with white flower boxes that resembled a toothy grin.

  They stopped at a village pub, and the barman told them that a man named Thomas Foley was the only person who went out to Skellig Columba. Captain Foley rarely answered his telephone, but he was usually home in the evening. Vicki arranged for rooms at the pub while Gabriel and Maya walked down the road. This was the first time they had been alone together since meeting in London. It seemed natural to be with him again, and Maya found herself thinking about the first time they’d met in Los Angeles. Both of them had been wary of each other and uncertain about their new responsibilities as Traveler and Harlequin.

  Near the outskirts of the village, they found a crudely drawn sign that announced CAPTAIN T. FOLEY—BOAT TOURS. They walked down a muddy driveway to a whitewashed cottage, and Maya knocked on the door.

  “Come in or stop knocking!” a man shouted, and they entered a front room filled with Styrofoam floats, discarded lawn furniture, and an aluminum rowboat on a sawhorse. The cottage appeared to be a sinkhole for all the trash in West Ireland. Gabriel followed Maya down a short hallway lined with stacks of old newspapers and bags filled with aluminum cans. The walls squeezed inward as they reached a second door.

  “If that’s you, James Kelly, you can bugger off!” shouted the voice.

  Maya pushed the door open and they entered a kitchen. There was an electric stove in one corner and a sink filled with dirty dishes. An old man sat at the center of the room repairing a tear in a fishing net. He smiled, revealing a crooked set of teeth, stained dark yellow by a lifetime of smoking and strong tea.

  “And who might you be?”

  “I’m Judith Strand and this is my friend Richard. We’re looking for Captain Foley.”

  “Well, you found him. What do you want him for?”

  “We’d like to charter a boat for four passengers.”

  “That’s easy enough to do.” Captain Foley gave Maya an appraising look, gauging the amount of money he could charge. “Half-day trip up the coast is three hundred euros. Full day is five hundred. And you need to pack your own bloody lunch.”

  “I’ve seen photographs of an island called Skellig Columba,” Gabriel said. “Think we could go there?”

  “I take supplies t
o the nuns every two weeks.” Foley rummaged through the clutter on the kitchen table until he found a briar pipe. “But you can’t put your foot on that particular island.”

  “What’s the problem?” Gabriel asked.

  “No problem. Just no visitors.” Captain Foley opened up a cracked sugar bowl, took out a pinch of black tobacco, and stuffed it into his pipe. “The island is owned by the Republic, leased to the Holy Church, and chartered to the Order of the Poor Sisters. One thing they all agree on—government, church, and nuns—is that they don’t want strangers tromping around Skellig Columba. It’s a protected area for seabirds. The Poor Clares don’t bother them because they spend their time praying.”

  “Well, perhaps if I just spoke to them and asked for permission to—”

  “No one gets on the island without a letter from the bishop, and I don’t see you waving one.” Foley lit the pipe and puffed some sugary smoke at Gabriel. “And that’s the end of the story.”

  “Here’s a new story,” Maya said. “I’ll pay you a thousand euros to take us out to the island so that we can talk to the nuns.”

  The captain considered her offer. “That might be possible….”

  Maya touched Gabriel’s hand and pulled him toward the doorway. “I think we’re going to look for another boat.”

  “It’s more than possible,” Foley said quickly. “See you on the wharf at ten tomorrow morning.”

  They left the house and walked outside. Maya felt like she’d been trapped in a badger’s den. It was close to nightfall and patches of darkness had appeared—tangled in the bushes and spreading beneath the trees.

  The villagers were safe within their homes, watching television and cooking dinner. Lights glowed through lace curtains, and smoke came up from some of the chimneys. Gabriel led Maya across the road to a rusty park bench that overlooked the bay. The tide was out, leaving a strip of dark sand covered with driftwood and dead seaweed. Maya sat on the bench as Gabriel walked to the tide line and gazed out at the western horizon. The setting sun touched the ocean and was transformed into a hazy blob of light that flowed across the water.

  “My father’s on that island,” Gabriel said. “I know he’s out there. I can almost hear him talking to me.”

  “Maybe that’s true. But we still don’t know why he came to Ireland. There has to be a reason.”

  Gabriel turned away from the water. He walked over to the bench and sat down beside her. They were alone in the gloom, close enough so that she could feel him breathing.

  “It’s getting dark,” he said. “Why are you still wearing your sunglasses?”

  “Just a habit.”

  “You once told me that Harlequins were against habits and predictable actions.”

  Gabriel reached out and removed her sunglasses. He folded them and placed them beside her leg. Now he was staring straight into her eyes. Maya felt naked and vulnerable, as if she had been stripped of all her weapons.

  “I don’t want you to look at me, Gabriel. It makes me uncomfortable.”

  “But we like each other. We’re friends.”

  “That’s not true. We can never be friends. I’m here to protect you—to die for you, if that’s necessary.”

  Gabriel looked out at the ocean. “I don’t want anyone dying for me.”

  “We all understand the risk.”

  “Maybe. But I’m connected to what happened. When we first met in Los Angeles and you told me I might be a Traveler, I didn’t understand how it was going to change the lives of the people I met. I have all these questions that I want to ask my father….” Gabriel fell silent and shook his head. “I never accepted the idea that he was gone. Sometimes, when I was a kid, I would lie in bed at night and have these imaginary conversations with him. I thought I’d grow out of that when I got older, but now it’s even more intense.”

  “Gabriel, your father might not be on the island.”

  “Then I’ll keep looking for him.”

  “If the Tabula know you’re searching for your father, they’ll have power over you. They’ll put out false clues—like bait for a trap.”

  “I’ll take that chance. But that doesn’t mean that you have to come along. It would destroy me if something happened to you, Maya. I couldn’t live with that.”

  She felt as if Thorn were standing behind the bench, whispering all his threats and warnings. Never trust anyone. Never fall in love. Her father was always so strong, so sure of himself—the most important person in her life. But damn him, she thought. He’s stolen my voice. I can’t speak.

  “Gabriel,” she whispered. “Gabriel…” Her voice was very soft, like that of a lost child who had given up hope of ever being found.

  “It’s all right.” He reached out and took her hand. Only a sliver of the sun remained on the horizon. Gabriel’s skin was warm to the touch, and Maya felt as if she would be cold—Harlequin cold—for the rest of her life.

  “I will stand beside you no matter what happens,” she said. “I swear that to you.”

  He leaned forward to kiss her. But when Maya turned her head, she saw dark shapes moving toward them.

  “Maya!” Vicki called out to them. “Is that you? Alice got worried. She wanted to find you guys….”

  IT RAINED THAT night. In the morning, a thick bank of fog lay on the ocean just outside the bay. Maya put on some of the clothes she had bought in London—wool pants, a dark green cashmere sweater, and a leather coat with winter lining. After eating breakfast at the pub, they walked over to the wharf and found Captain Foley loading sacks of peat and plastic storage boxes onto his thirty-foot fishing boat. Foley explained that the peat was for the convent’s stove, and the boxes contained food and clean clothes. The only water on Skellig Columba came from rain that trickled into rock catch basins. There was enough water for the nuns to drink and wash themselves, but not enough to wash their black skirts and veils.

  The boat had an open deck for pulling in fishing nets and an enclosed cockpit near the bow that gave protection from the wind. Alice seemed excited to be back on a boat. She went in and out of the hold, inspecting everything, as they began to leave the bay. Captain Foley lit his pipe and puffed some smoke in their direction. “Known world,” he said, and jerked his thumb toward the green hills to the east. “And this…” He gestured toward the west.

  “End of the world,” Gabriel said.

  “That’s right, boyo. When Saint Columba and his monks first came to this island, they were traveling to the farthest place west on a map of Europe. Last stop on the tramline.”

  They entered into the fog the moment they left the protection of the bay. It was like being in the middle of an enormous cloud. The decks glistened and drops of water clung to the steel cables attached to the radio antenna. The fishing boat glided down into the trough of each new wave, only to rise up again to splash through the whitecaps. Alice held on to the rail at the stern, then ran back to Maya. Looking excited, she pointed at a harbor seal floating near the boat. The seal stared back at them like a sleek dog that had just found some strangers in his backyard.

  Gradually, the fog began to burn away and they could see patches of sky overhead. Seabirds were everywhere: shearwaters and storm petrels, pelicans and white gannets with black-tipped wings. After traveling for an hour or so, they passed an island called Little Skellig that was a nesting ground for the gannets. The bare rock was colored white, and thousands of the birds swirled through the air.

  Another hour passed before Skellig Columba emerged from the waves. It looks exactly like the photograph Gabriel had seen at Tyburn Convent: two jagged peaks of a submerged mountain range. The island was covered with brush and heather, but Maya couldn’t see the convent or any other structure.

  “Where do we land?” she asked Captain Foley.

  “Patience, miss. We’re coming in from the east. There’s a bit of a cove on the south side of the island.”

  Keeping wide of the rocks, Foley approached a twenty-foot dock attached to steel pilings.
The dock led to a concrete slab that was surrounded by a chain-link fence. A prominent sign with red and black letters announced that the island was a protected ecological area off-limits to anyone who had not received written permission from the Kerry diocese. A locked gate had been installed at the edge of the slab. It guarded a stone stairway that led up the slope.

  Captain Foley cut the engine. The waves pushed his boat up against the dock and he threw a loop around one of the pilings. Maya, Vicki, and Alice climbed up to the concrete slab while Gabriel helped Foley unload the storage boxes and sacks of peat. Vicki went over to the gate and touched the brass padlock that held the latch. “Now what?”

  “No one’s here,” Maya said. “I think we should get around the fence and walk up the ridge to the convent.”

  “Captain Foley wouldn’t like that idea.”

  “Foley brought us here. I gave him only half the money. Gabriel isn’t going to leave until he learns about his father.”

  Alice ran across the platform and pointed up the slope. When Maya stepped back, she could see that four nuns were coming down steps that led to the dock. The Poor Clares wore black habits and veils with white wimples and neck collars. The knotted white cords around their waists had been inspired by the Franciscan history of their order. All four women were wrapped in black woolen shawls that covered their upper bodies. The wind whipped the ends of the shawls back and forth, but the women kept moving until they saw that strangers had appeared on their island. They stopped—the first three nuns grouping together on the steps while the tallest nun remained a few steps behind.

  Captain Foley carried two bags of peat onto the platform and dumped them near the gate. “Don’t look good,” he said. “The tall one is the abbess. She runs the show.”

  One of the Poor Clares climbed up the staircase to the abbess, received an order, and then hurried down the steps to the gate.