The Order of Brigid's Cross - The Wild Hunt (Book 1): The Wild Hunt

by Terri Reid

  “If you are talking about my Jamal, then this is the only place I ought to be,” she replied firmly. “He’s my responsibility and has been since he was a baby.”

  “His mother?” Aengus inquired.

  “She was killed,” Mrs. Gage replied softly. “The whispers, they told her to stay home, but she didn’t listen. She thought she would be protected. Thought she knew better. But she was wrong and I’m not going to let that happen to my Jamal.”

  Aengus studied her for a moment. “And what do you think of his story?” he asked her. “The creatures he’s claimed to have seen.”

  “My Jamal don’t lie to me,” she said. “And if he said he saw those things, then he saw them. The Good Book tells us about demons and creatures. I ain’t got no reason to disbelieve my boy.”

  “Well, I would like to help protect your boy,” Aengus said. “I would ask you, as his guardian, to turn over his protection to me.”

  Mrs. Gage looked slowly around the room at the faces of each person engaged in the conversation, unknowingly mirroring Sean’s actions of just a few minutes prior. Then she met Aengus’s eyes. “No thank you, kindly,” she replied. “I have faith in the people in this room who have protected us so far. I don’t know you and, no offense meant, but I don’t know why I should trust you.”

  With a deferential nod in her direction, Aengus put his hand out towards Caer. “It seems, my dear, that we are no longer needed here,” he said, helping her from her chair. He paused for a moment and then turned back to Mrs. Gage. “Madame, I abide by your decision, but should you ever need my help, you need only ask.”

  “Can you stop them?” she asked. “Stop them demons who killed those children?”

  “I’m afraid I cannot,” he replied. “They can only be stopped by the one who summoned them or by his champion, and I am neither.”

  “That’s the only way to stop them?” Sean asked.

  Aengus turned to Sean. “I’m afraid so,” he said. “I fear that many more are going to die before this is over.”

  Chapter Forty-seven

  The sound of the door latch clicking in place after Aengus and Caer left echoed in the quiet room. “So, these other guys, the bad guys,” Sean said, breaking the silence. “They were there waiting for the kids on the other side of the park with guns.”

  Pete nodded. “Yeah, to make sure there were no other loose ends to tie up,” he said, the disgust showing on his face. “Mowed them down in cold blood.”

  “Why didn’t we hear them? Why didn’t we know?” Sean asked, slapping his palm against the wall. “Damn it, they were frightened kids.”

  “They probably used silencers,” Ian said. “And, with all the noise from the windstorm the Hunt created, it probably would have been hard to even hear unsilenced guns.”

  “We’ve got to stop them,” Sean said, his face set.

  “How?” Gillian asked. “We don’t know who summoned them.”

  “Yeah, well we know someone who’s pretty damn close to the situation,” Sean replied, moving towards the door. “I’m going to have a little chat with Detective Adrian Williams.”

  Pete rolled his wheelchair forward, effectively blocking Sean from the door. “I’m going with you,” he said.

  “What?” Sean asked, anger and frustration on the edge of his voice. “You don’t think I can handle him?”

  Pete shook his head. “No, I’m going there to protect Adrian,” he replied calmly. “You’re not thinking straight right now.”

  Sean turned on his friend. “Thinking straight? Thinking straight?” he yelled. “How the hell am I supposed to think? Adrian was part of the group that allowed this in my city. No one gets away with that!”

  Pete took a moment and met Sean’s eyes. “You’re supposed to remember that Adrian was probably under the power of something he doesn’t understand,” he explained. “You’re supposed to remember the Adrian you trained, not the one who is under the influence of the fae.”

  Sean exhaled slowly and closed his eyes for a moment. “Okay, dammit, you’re right,” he admitted.

  “When have I ever been wrong, O’Reilly?” Pete asked.

  The light jest did what it was intended to do, and Sean felt the tightness easing in his chest.

  “Do you still want to go?” Sean asked.

  Pete smiled at his friend. “Are you kidding?” he asked. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  A movement behind Em caught Sean’s attention as Jamal stuck his head out from Father Jack’s study. “Can I come out now?” Jamal asked.

  Sean nodded. “Yeah, the coast is clear,” he said. “How are you doing?”

  The young boy shrugged, but Sean could see the apprehension in his eyes. “What did you hear?” Sean asked.

  Jamal looked down at the floor, trying to ignore the question. Sean moved across the room and knelt down in front of him. “Hey, we’re all on the same side,” he said. “We’re a team. You can’t hold back from your team.”

  Lifting his head, he met Sean’s eyes. “I heard those other kids, from last night, got shot,” Jamal replied. “The ones you saved, they died anyway.” Taking a deep breath, he summoned his courage to ask the next question. “Am I going to die, too?”

  “No,” Sean replied resolutely. “You are not going to die. We are going to keep you safe, and we are going to end the Wild Hunt.”

  “You are?” Jamal asked, his eyes widening in admiration.

  “Yes, we are,” Sean said. “Pete and I are going out to meet with someone who knows about them. We’re going to find a way to take them down.”

  Jamal studied Sean for a moment, meeting his eyes and reading the confidence in them. His chest didn’t feel nearly as tight as it had a moment ago, and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in.

  “You okay?” Sean asked.

  Jamal’s mouth curved into a small smile. “You gonna jump from any more balconies?” he asked.

  “Oh, funny kid, real funny,” Sean replied, smiling back at the boy. “You keep this up and I’m cutting off your supply of burgers and fries.”

  “Now that would be a tragedy,” Em replied, walking over and standing next to Jamal. “We might actually have to feed him something nourishing, like vegetables.”

  Sean and Jamal made identical faces of disgust. Then Sean looked up and met Em’s gaze. “Can you watch over Jamal and Mrs. Gage while Pete and I meet with Adrian?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yes, they won’t leave my side,” she said.

  “How do you feel about homemade chocolate chip cookies?” Mrs. Gage asked, taking a deep breath and smiling at Em. “Maybe you, me and Jamal could mix them up and have them waiting for everyone when they get back.”

  “Well, I feel good about eating them,” she replied. “But I’m more handy with a sword than I am with a mixing bowl.”

  “That’s okay,” Jamal inserted. “I can help mix and you can taste test.”

  Em put her arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Now that sounds like an ideal plan to me.”

  “Thanks,” Sean said, sending Em a grateful nod. “We’ll keep in touch and let you know how things are going.”

  “If it’s okay with everyone else, I’ve a project in mind that might help us,” Ian inserted. “I’d like to spend a little more time in the lab with Gillian, if that’s fine with you.”

  “Yeah, we need any advantage we can get,” Sean said.

  “And while everyone else is occupied, I’m going to see about faery-proofing the church,” Father Jack said. “I never thought we’d need it, but it’s obvious that we’re vulnerable here.”

  “Okay, it looks like everyone has a plan,” Sean said taking a deep breath. “Now let’s put them in action.”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  “So, how are you going to persuade Adrian to meet with us without making him suspicious?” Pete asked, sitting next to Sean in the cruiser.

  His eyes focused on the road ahead of him, Sean didn’t answer.

/>   “Don’t have a clue, do you?” Pete asked.

  “Yeah. I got nothing,” Sean said.

  “Well, good,” Pete replied, nodding. “At least we know what our weaknesses are.”

  Sean grinned. “Yeah, that’s a good way to look at it,” he said.

  An incoming call on Sean’s cell phone halted their conversation as he reached forward and pressed the hands-free button on the cruiser to have the call go through the radio. “O’Reilly here,” he said.

  “Hey, Irish, it’s Adrian.” Adrian’s voice slipped through the car’s speaker.

  Pete lifted his eyebrows in surprise and shook his head.

  “Hey, Skinny, how’s it going?” Sean asked.

  “Good. It’s going good,” he replied. “Hey, you remember that case earlier in the week?”

  “The one with the kid at the hospital?” Sean asked.

  “Yeah, that one,” Adrian answered.

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “Well, I got some information that a friend of yours is helping the kid out,” Adrian said. “Pete O’Bryan is representing him.”

  “Why does he need representation?” Sean asked, trying to get more information from Adrian. “He was just a witness, right?”

  There was a long pause and a heavy sigh. “Yeah, well, it looks like he might have had more to do with the crime than we initially thought.”

  “You’re pulling my leg, right?” Sean asked. “That kid isn’t a gang-banger, much less a murderer. What the hell is going on, Adrian?”

  “Can we meet?” Adrian asked, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I gotta talk to you.”

  “Yeah, we can meet,” Sean replied. “When and where?”

  There was a pause. Then Adrian’s lowered voice came over the speaker again. “I can be at Slainte in twenty,” he said. “Can you be there?”

  “Yeah, I can,” Sean answered. “There’s a backroom where we can meet privately. Robby will bring you there, and I’ll come in the back so no one will see us together.”

  “Yeah, that’d be good,” he replied. “Thanks, Sean.”

  “No problem,” Sean said. “I’ll see you there.”

  Sean disconnected the phone and turned to Pete. “See, I had a plan all along,” he said.

  “I’d say it was the luck of the Irish,” Pete replied, sitting back as Sean accelerated with sirens blasting towards Slainte, “but I’m Irish, too, and I never have the kind of luck you do.”

  “Well, let’s see how long this O’Reilly luck holds out when we meet with Adrian,” Sean said.

  Sean cut the sirens a couple blocks away from the restaurant in order to avoid drawing attention. He turned into an alley a block away from the restaurant and glided past garbage cans and garages until he reached his destination. Pulling into the back of the restaurant, he parked the cruiser discreetly behind some dumpsters.

  “It’s not going to work,” Pete said as Sean put the car into park.

  “What?” Sean asked.

  “Even the smell of the dumpsters isn’t going to help the inside of your car,” he replied, reaching over and picking up an old styrofoam drink container from between the seats. “Do you ever clean this thing out?”

  “Nope, it adds to the ambiance of the vehicle,” Sean replied with a grin. “Besides, no one ever asks to borrow my cruiser, so it’s an added bonus.”

  He slid out of the car, grabbed Pete’s wheelchair and walked over to the passenger side. Pete pushed the door open and studied the area before he maneuvered himself into the chair. “Do you think we’re good?” his voice softer and more intense.

  “Hell, Pete,” Sean whispered back, also scanning the back lot. “I have no idea what we’re fighting. So, keep your weapon close and ready.”

  Pete patted his pocket and nodded. “Good idea. But I think I would still feel better if I had something like holy water at my disposal.”

  Sean reached in his jacket, pulled out a small capped vial and handed it to Pete.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Pete asked, staring at the small bottle.

  “Nope,” Sean said, shaking his head definitively. “And I’ve got garlic in my other pocket, just in case.”

  Pete shook his head and pushed his wheelchair forward. “What? Just in case they want Alfredo?” he asked.

  “I’m more of a garlic bread kind of guy,” Sean replied, matching his pace to Pete’s chair. “Hey, I did want to say thanks.”

  Pete stopped and looked up at Sean. “For what?”

  Sean shrugged. “You know, for getting into this crazy thing with me,” he replied. “I mean, this is a lot more dangerous than what I initially thought when I called you. And, quite frankly, this is batshit crazy.”

  Pete continued pushing his chair forward. “No more crazy than running back into the line of fire in the Shahi-Kot Valley to rescue a friend who was hit by RPG shrapnel. I should have died that day.”

  Placing a hand on Pete’s shoulder, Sean smiled. “No big deal. You would have done the same for me.”

  Pete looked up over his shoulder. “I have realized, in the past few days, that you tend to run towards danger,” he replied with his own smile. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to run away?”

  Shaking his head, Sean chuckled. “You know, I never did learn that lesson, did I?”

  “And that’s why I stay around,” Pete replied. “To try and keep your butt out of trouble.”

  Sean sighed. “Well,” he said as they traveled up the ramp to the loading dock at the back of Slainte. “You need to work harder.”

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Adrian shook his head when he entered the small back room and saw Pete sitting next to Sean at the table. “Yeah, I shoulda known,” he said with a wry shake of his head. “I thought we were friends. I thought I could trust you.”

  “Sit down,” Sean said, his voice sharp. “And we’ll talk about trust.”

  Adrian sat on a wooden chair, his bulking mass almost too much for the piece of furniture. “Yeah, go on,” he taunted. “You tell me about trust.”

  “Do you even know who you’re dealing with?” Sean asked. “Have you even seen those things you are setting loose on those kids? Adrian, what’s happened to you? You used to be all about saving the kids in the gangs, not slaughtering them.”

  Shaking his head, Adrian leaned forward. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “I didn’t slaughter any kids. That criminal you’ve been hiding is responsible for those deaths.”

  Sean searched Adrian’s eyes and was more than a little disturbed to see that Adrian was serious about his accusations. “Okay, do me a favor, for old time’s sake,” he said. “Deal?”

  Adrian nodded his head curtly. “Fine.”

  “Okay, think back to the night at the hospital, the night you called me,” Sean said. “And think like a cop. What do you remember about that night?”

  Adrian leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath, lifting his eyes to the ceiling for a moment as he searched his memory. “Okay, I got called in because there had been a gang fight,” he started.

  “Who made the call?” Pete asked.

  Adrian shrugged. “It was dispatch.”

  Pete shook his head. “No, it wasn’t,” he said. “Dispatch didn’t call you that night. I checked. You went to the hospital on your own.”

  Leaning forward, Adrian shook his head. “What?” he asked. “Then why in the hell would I go to the hospital in the middle of the night?”

  “That’s a good question,” Sean inserted. “And why did you know about the second fight and what was happening on the ground before any squad cars got there?”

  Adrian looked from Pete to Sean. “I didn’t—”

  “Yeah, you did,” Sean interrupted. “Because I was there at the park when it went down. And you called me before any other cars reached the park.”

  Burying his head in his hands for a moment, Adrian was silent. “Sean, you’re wrong. You’ve got to be messing with me.”

  “A
drian, you worked with me for two years,” Sean replied, his voice gentle. “Have I ever lied to you?”

  Looking up and meeting Sean’s eyes, Adrian slowly shook his head. “No. No, you haven’t,” he said.

  “And that’s why you called him the first night,” Pete said. “There was something inside you, deep inside you, that wanted the truth to be out there. That’s why you called the only man you knew you could trust.”

  Staring at Sean again, Adrian shook his head. “Damn, I don’t even remember calling you,” he said.

  “Yeah, I’m not surprised,” Sean replied. “So, now, think back to that night. What do you actually remember?”

  He leaned back again, linking his hands together and resting his head in the palms as he gazed up to the ceiling. “Okay, okay, I remember watching the clock at my apartment,” he said slowly. “It was like I had an appointment. Then, at ten o’clock, I got up, got into my car and drove to the park.” He looked at Sean with confusion in his eyes. “I didn’t get a call. How the hell did I know to go to the park?”

  “Yeah, we’ll get there in a minute,” Sean said. “But you need to keep remembering.”

  “I drove down the street and saw the kid,” he continued. “Jamal. He was huddled in a doorway across the street from the park. His hands were cut real bad, and he looked pretty beat up. He was scared to death, babbling about monsters.”

  “Yeah, sounds like a real killer to me,” Pete inserted.

  Oblivious to Pete’s comment, Adrian continued. “I helped him into my car. I knew he needed to be at the hospital.”

  “Why didn’t you wait for an ambulance?” Pete asked.

  “‘Cause I knew no ambulances were going to be dispatched,” he answered automatically.

  “And how would you know that,” Sean asked, “if if dispatch never called you about the incident?”?” Sean asked quickly, not giving Adrian a chance to think.

  “‘Cause there wasn’t supposed to be survivors,” Adrian said, his eyes widening as the words slipped from his mouth. “What the hell is wrong with me?”