Exit Unicorns

by Cindy Brandner

  Muttering curses that even Jamie found impressive, the apparition heaved itself over the sill to stand dripping on a 12,000 pound Persian rug, loomed by hundreds of dark-eyed women who knew far drier climes.

  “And what the fock,” said the apparition flinging off rain like a waterlogged St. Bernard, “if I may be so bold as to ask is a summons at this unholy hour all about?”

  “I might ask you the same,” Jamie said dryly “if indeed I had any bloody idea what exactly this is all about.”

  “Ye sent me a note,” the apparition said exasperatedly, “said it was urgent that we meet, here, tonight. Now granted it’s hardly subtle summoning me like the friggin’ lord of the manor but then I figured if the shoe fits, a man is likely to wear it. “

  “If I may be spared your profundities for a moment,” Jamie said “I will repeat for the benefit of all listeners that I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  The apparition looked at him suspiciously, sniffed and then said rather succinctly, Jamie thought, considering the pickle they now found themselves in, “Shit.”

  “Indeed it would seem we are up to our hipwaders in said substance,” Jamie replied without a trace of amusement to leaven his voice.

  “How much time do ye think we’ve got?” asked the apparition, looking hopefully over his shoulder at the still open window.

  “Not enough I imagine,” Jamie replied and barely got the words out before feeling the gust of air that preceded a great walloping thump on his head. As he sank to the carpet, he found to his surprise that he really wasn’t very surprised at all.

  “Finished yer nap, then?” said a voice, disembodied and floating somewhere above his head. Not God this time, unless of course God was Belfast Irish, working class with just a hint of west country underneath.

  Two fingers, without the gentleness one could have expected of God or even one of His lesser minions, pried open an eye that Jamie really would have preferred to keep shut.

  “Ow,” he said as slowly his vision began to clear and he realized that hell suddenly seemed an attractive option. The figure before him certainly bore no resemblance to any harp playing angel and the devil was likely, Jamie thought closing his eye again, to have a much better wardrobe.

  “Come on it’s time to wake up.” There came a sharp tap to the side of his face and then another sharper still. “We haven’t got a lot of time and I could use some help here.” This last was said with no little sarcasm, Jamie noted before slowly and painfully opening his eyes. The world, for an endless moment, looped off its axis, did a pirouette and seemingly leaped over the moon before settling somewhat blearily down into the shape of large, freezing cold room made of some strange bubbling material, which in another moment reconstituted itself into large gray stones. A barn, deserted and likely miles from any sort of help, he thought slowly raising himself up off the floor until he was in a sitting position and swallowing back the nausea, found himself inches from a glowering countenance.

  “I think after the fiasco of the last hour we rank in the top five stupidest people in the world,” said a voice, that instead of floating up near the rafters, was only a foot or two away from its owner whose face slowly pulled itself together until it became the nose, mouth, eyes and ears of Casey Riordan.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Jamie said muzzily, awkwardly patting at Casey’s face.

  “Blame myself,” Casey snorted, “it’s not likely I would man as it’s yer own tender hide they were after. I was in the way of a bonus, I believe.”

  “Me?” Jamie echoed in disbelief, “I’m not the one with the lifetime subscription to Republican Weekly now am I? What on earth would those men want with me?”

  “That,” Casey said, “is the exact same question I’ve been asking meself these last two hours.” He gave him a burning look that did nothing for the state of Jamie’s head.

  “Well it’s a question that will have to remain unanswered because I’ve no idea what the answer is,” Jamie said a trifle too calmly.

  “Don’t try yer Oxford airs on me man. My da was a man of some learnin’ ye know,”

  “Indeed,” Jamie replied as Casey took a long, and in view of the situation they currently found themselves in, very relaxed pull on his cigarette. “I’m very happy for your father I’m certain but exactly how it pertains to our present condition I’m rather more mystified by.”

  “Sarcasm, ye must be feelin’ yerself again. Well it’s not very hospitable of ye to not take the time to hear a man’s story, an’ as this one is short an’ fairly to the point I think ye’ll find it interestin’.” He smiled then in a way that would have been quite disarming if there wasn’t such a great deal of menace behind it.

  “Please, do tell,” said Jamie feeling his head gingerly for open wounds.

  “I’ve looked ye over, ye’ll not die any time soon, or if ye do, it won’t be from a head wound.” Jamie taking the none-too-fine point glared at Casey, who genially raised his eyebrows in return, then sighed and said, “Ye’ll not be the most appreciative audience I can tell but fer lack of a better ye’ll have to do. My Da’, may he rest in peace, loved a good story, Pat gets his love of readin’ from him, told us every Irish legend there was to know. Finn MacCool, The Cycles of the Tain, an’ of Ulster. All the true stories of every rebel an’ patriot. It’s what all we Riordans are raised on, stories of blood sacrifice. ‘Twas those stories I liked the best, the ones where men did what they must, but our Pat was always of a more fanciful bent, ye may have noticed the lad has his head in the clouds moren’ is good for anyone. An’ Da’, god rest him, was of the same mind, they liked their stories well embroidered with fairies an’ flowers an’ pretty words. There was one in particular though that caught myself as well. Had a pretty woman in the center of it an’ I’ve a weakness there as sure as any man.”

  Jamie, whose stomach had only begun to settle suppressed another surge of nausea and considered that he didn’t quite like the direction this one-sided conversation was taking.

  “Perhaps ye’ll have read it yerself, ‘twas a romantic little tale called ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’.

  Jamie felt himself start involuntarily and saw the responding smile on Casey’s face.

  “Well then, hit a nerve have I, yer Lordship?” Casey lit another cigarette off the butt of his still smoldering one and took a long and Jamie could not help but notice, satisfied puff on it.

  “And if you had, what exactly would be the point?” Jamie asked warily, feeling like a bemused gazelle being circled by the hungry lion.

  Casey rubbed the red-hot ashes of his cigarette carefully into the stone floor. “No particular point, it’s only that a man in my line of work often finds it useful to know exactly who he’s dealin’ with.”

  “And you think you know now?” Jamie asked, blinking slowly in an effort to keep his head clear.

  “Not exactly, let’s just say that it certainly makes the fix we’re currently in somewhat more interestin’.”

  “Death with a spin on the tale is still only death,” Jamie said bitingly.

  “Aye, I suppose ye’ve a point but as I’ve no intention of dying here tonight it’s only a point.” Casey stubbed out his cigarette and sighed, the boldness of a moment ago gone.

  “Where’s my brother?” he asked in a lightning turn of subject that somewhat relieved Jamie.

  “You ask like a man who knows the answer,” Jamie said.

  “I’m not here te play verbal word games with ye man, there’s really no time fer that. In case the bastards that col’cocked us are more efficient than I suspect them to be, I’d like to go on my last sleep knowin’ that he’s safe.”

  “Knowing that he’s safe?” Jamie echoed, “He’s of the rather certain opinion that you really didn’t care whether he died in a gutter somewhere.”

  “Oh Christ,” Casey rubbed a large hand roughly over his face. “Did ye
never have yer moments when ye wished with everything ye were that ye could take words, an’ erase them from time altogether, that ye could just wash the air clean of them and say what ye really meant.”

  “You haven’t seen him since, I think perhaps he interprets that as you being unable to stand the sight of him,” Jamie said less harshly.

  “It was him that didn’t want forgiveness,” Casey said stubbornly.

  “Did you ever think that he didn’t want it because he knew you were incapable of giving it?”

  Casey raised his head and Jamie was appalled to see the grim desperation there. “Ye’ll not know just how desperate that night was, to learn what I did an’ that he’d hidden it from me. Pamela had from shame, but Pat, why couldn’t he be honest with me, he ought to have told me.”

  “She made him swear not to, it was the only thing she asked of anyone that whole wretched night, that you not be told. Don’t blame her for loving you more than her own pain.”

  “I don’t blame her, at least not now, alright maybe there was a bit of me that wondered why she couldn’t tell me, but she could lay every burden at your feet an’ give ye the gift of her trust.”

  “You know why she did that,” Jamie replied quietly, “and you know what it cost your brother, you weren’t the only one hurt in all this. Pat’s life will never be the same; in some ways it scarred him more than it did her.”

  “I know that,” Casey said angrily, “do ye think I don’t know what it did to my own brother? Do ye think I don’t know that he’ll never be the man he should have been? Do ye think I’m blind?”

  “Are you?” Jamie asked in a level tone.

  Casey pushed himself up and paced the floor in agitation.

  “It’s all turned into some fockin’ Greek tragedy then, hasn’t it? I can’t bear the sight of my own brother because he reminds me of what I couldn’t prevent, I see my own weakness mirrored in his face. My brother that I swore on my father’s grave I’d protect with my last breath.”

  “Then why can’t you forgive him?”

  Casey paused in his violent path and looked Jamie full in the eyes, one bleeding man to another. “Because he loves her, doesn’t he? My own brother loves my wife and I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t bear the pain of watchin’ him kill himself over somethin’ that is not his for the takin’.”

  “Only yours,” Jamie said in anger before he could stop himself.

  “She is my wife, she lies in my bed an’ even then I am not fool enough to tell myself that I’m not sharin’ her with you.”

  The silence that ensued was blisteringly uncomfortable. Jamie cleared his throat several times and then said, “Would you feel better if you punched me?”

  “Aye,” there was just the ghost of a smile playing about Casey’s mouth. “Aye, I think I would.”

  Jamie stood, avoiding a glance at Casey’s broad and all too capable hands and said, “Well then have at it.”

  As he lay on the floor a second later, clutching his nose, he wasn’t sure what surprised him more, that Casey had taken him up on his offer so promptly or that it hurt more profoundly than he had expected it to.

  “It’s broke,” he said in a muffled tone before spitting out blood onto the floor.

  “Aye, I apologize for that, I didn’t mean to hit ye quite so hard.”

  “Forgive me if I find that particular pill a little hard to swallow,” Jamie retorted taking the hand that Casey proffered to him.

  “I realize it’ll be of small consolation but I do feel better.”

  “You’re right, it’s of small consolation,” Jamie replied.

  “Now will ye tell me man, where my brother is an’ if he’s safe.”

  “He’s at my house, catching up on all the schoolwork he’s neglected and working at a printer’s shop in the evenings. He’s safe enough for the time being and he’s as happy as could be expected at this point.”

  “Mmphm,” Casey mumbled looking with great interest at the laces of his boots, “well then I suppose I owe ye a debt of thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jamie said dryly.

  “I’m glad he’s gone,” Casey said so quietly that Jamie wasn’t certain he’d heard the words right. “Maybe he’ll stay away, maybe he can do what no other man in my family has done an’ live a long an’ full life.”

  “Maybe you could do that yourself.”

  Casey gave Jamie a long look and shook his head, “Tisn’t my road to follow.”

  “That’s rather fatalistic for a fine upstanding revolutionary, aren’t you supposed to believe all things are possible?”

  “I’m not so much a revolutionary as a realist, this business makes ye become one after awhile, I know what’s likely to be the outcome of another generation of fighting.”

  Jamie felt himself growing angry.

  “Then why bother? If you can’t change it, if you don’t believe there’s a chance for peace, for the freedom you espouse and the murders you excuse in its name, then tell me what is the point?”

  “This country is the point, it’s that simple. We have the right to live as free men in our own land, the right to jobs where yer qualifications are the decidin’ factor an’ not the church ye go to on Sunday. We deserve to vote with some hope. People should not have to leave this country to get a fair crack at life but that’s not the reality, is it? My wife should have been safe on that train, but she wasn’t.”

  “Women are raped everyday in all parts of the world, that’s hardly something you can chalk up to the bloody politics in this land.”

  “Jamie she was not raped for who she was but for what she was an’ I’m not talkin’ about the fact that she’s a woman. Some would say I should just thank my lucky stars that she and Pat are even alive. Some, as ye well know, have not been so lucky. Though I’m inclined to believe that night on the train was no random act.”

  “What?” Jamie sat up, his head clearing with a violent swiftness.

  “Ye heard me, an’ don’t tell me the thought hasn’t occurred to ye, I’ll grant yer inquiries have been discreet but as our questions have been leadin’ us down the same path ‘twas inevitable that we’d cross at some point. You an’ I have asked the same question one too many times, it’s why we’re here. Though to be certain if we’d been on the right track I believe we’d both be dead by now.”

  “I suppose being smacked over the head is somewhat more subtle than a swift and brutal death,” Jamie mused acidly, his pulse quickening as he considered the possibilities that lay on the other side of the door.

  “Aye, more subtle an’ infinitely more dangerous,” Casey said rising to his feet once more and vainly glancing about for an opening of any sort.

  “Are we being sent a message then?”

  Casey nodded, dark eyes traveling over every inch of stone and wood.

  “The rape, my brother’s beating that was intended for me, tonight they were speaking directly to you.”

  “Redhand militants?” Jamie inquired mildly.

  “No,” Casey replied, “the rape an’ beating that was their style, blunt, brutal, violent an’ if they’d killed Pat an’ Pamela I’d of thought it was them. Would suit their ‘take-no-prisoners’ style. No, there’s something far more involved goin’ on here, I just haven’t been able to wrap my mind round the right answer yet. The boys on that train were lackeys, the question is whose?”

  “So you’re saying that by looking into the rape, by trying to find the bastards that did it we’re moving too close to something far bigger?”

  “Aye, got it in one,” there was a strange look forming on Casey’s face, strange and slightly jubilant. “Well I’ll be damned,” he said the look becoming an outright grin.

  “Would you mind sharing what’s making you grin like an idiot,” Jamie said, the lump on his head beginning to throb again.

  “Bird shit,” Ca
sey said, the grin becoming wider and more annoying by the minute.

  “Bird shit,” Jamie echoed, eyebrows raised at this latest turn in the conversation.

  “Aye, bird shit,” Casey replied merrily, pointing up the very limits of the stone walls.

  He had to squint to see it, pale, runnelling streaks on the walls nearly indiscernible in the dim light, but there. And where there was bird shit, there was most certainly—“Birds,” Casey said triumphantly. “An’ where there’s birds there’s a hole somewhere to get the hell out of here.

  Jamie looked doubtfully at the smooth, stone walls that rose thirty feet into the air and thought that if they, like the aforementioned birds, could fly, they’d be out of here in no time at all.

  “I don’t quite see,” he began then stopped abruptly as he realized that Casey hovered some five feet off the floor already, clinging to the wall like an oversized, genial spider. “What the hell are you doing?” he finished.

  “Getting the fock out of here,” Casey replied calmly, “as I suggest ye do if yer as overfond of breathin’ as I am.”

  It was a long, bruising climb and it took over an hour to accomplish, by which time both men were soaked with sweat, shaking with fatigue and gasping for air. Twice Jamie had slipped, once at around ten feet and then again when he was within a hand’s breadth of reaching Casey, who was by then precariously balanced on a blackened and ancient beam. It had only been Casey’s agility and lightning reflexes that had saved him from the long fall that would have resulted in certain death. He wasn’t entirely certain how comfortable he was with Casey saving his life, but thought now was hardly the time to worry about it.