Iron and Salt

by Calinda B

  Marie patted his shoulder. “To Billy.”

  He took a hearty swig of the beer.

  A lifelong fisherman, he’d lost his two best mates, Billy and Sean, to that horrible banshee business before she was born. After that tragedy, he’d devoted his time to getting the entire village to learn sign language, to be able to communicate with the pub’s owner, Siobhan.

  Marie never knew Billy and Sean, but she may as well have. The pub devoted an entire wall to the two handsome young lads, at Sixpack’s insistence.

  As Marie settled on a stool next to Sixpack, Lady Freddie said, “Will you be having the usual?”

  “Same as ever. Water for re-hydration and a pint as a reward. Maybe some fish and chips. I’m a bit hungry today.” She tapped her fingertips on the bar top.

  Lady Freddie chuckled. “Why you push yourself so much is anyone’s mystery.”

  Marie smiled. Everyone told her that. She took it in good stride. She did push herself in everything she did—hard.

  “Maybe I like a good challenge.” More like I’m running from that thing I refuse to name—the thing that’s been chasing me since childhood.

  “Or, maybe you like the rest of us to get exhausted watching you,” a voice called from the kitchen. Petra O’Neill pushed through the swinging doors, a tray of mugs in hand. “Lord knows I get tired just being near all that energy.” She waved in Marie’s direction. Then, she glanced at Lady Freddie with stars and moonbeams in her eyes.

  Lady Freddie returned the loving gaze as she snatched a cold mug from the refrigerated storage keep.

  “You two are the poster children for a loving relationship,” Marie said. “How long has it been?”

  “Oh, it was right before you were born, so twenty-two years,” Lady Freddie said, as she poured Marie’s Guinness. “We both waited a long time to find true love. Meanwhile, my betraying ex, Lord Laughlin, is currently suffering from syphilis.” She snorted. “May his dick fall off, may his balls be covered with warts, and may his rash never heal.” She hefted Marie’s pint into the air.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Sixpack chimed in. He lifted his mug, then glugged a generous amount.

  Marie accepted the proffered beer. “I’ll drink to that as well.”

  She took a long pull of the delicious, earthy Guinness. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the quartet she’d nicknamed the Bible Study Group, or BSG, huddled in the corner of the pub.

  Hunched in a booth, her father, Cillian, and her mother, Lassi, were so deep in conversation with Garda Sergeant Ryan Conway and Doc Breslin, they had failed to see her enter.

  Thanks to their Leviathan transformation, her mom and dad didn’t look a day over twenty-five. Which was odd, when Marie thought about it. How could she have parents who looked her age, and no one said anything? Her dad said it was something their magic took care of, by altering the minds of all they encountered.

  Siobhan, Bres’s wife, snuggled against him. She kept her eyes trained on each person’s mouth, lip reading.

  Marie’s father threw up his hands, gesticulating wildly.

  Her mother leaned in close, jabbing her finger toward his face.

  Then, her father sank into his stony, Leviathan self—without the full transformation, of course, or people would be screaming. His expression became blank. His irises turned into yellow-green slits, like a cat.

  Marie chuckled. Her mother had no recourse when her father turned to stone. All her yelling and threats would fall on deaf ears. It was her dad’s best defense.

  Her mother and father had a passionate, tempestuous relationship. It proved a marked contrast to Siobhan and Bres, who gently doted on one another.

  Siobhan and Bres lived each day with loving kindness radiating from their pores. Marie’s mother lived each day as if the house was on fire and only she could put it out.

  Marie afforded a sly glance at Ryan who sat across from her mum.

  He glanced in her direction, then, swiftly turned back to the conversation.

  She shivered at the brief contact. Nearly twice her age, she found him intensely attractive in his own unique way. He brought a calm disposition, and a rock-steady demeanor, to the BSG. With her foot beginning to twitch and a swirl of energy launching up her insides, her mind began to veer into the crush she hid from herself. Stop it. He’ll never see me that way. He’s my godfather, for goodness sake.

  She turned to Lady Freddie and said, “I’ll be eating over there with that crew.”

  Lady Freddie nodded. “I’ll bring the food over, along with some water.”

  Marie rose, picked up her Guinness, and sauntered toward the BSG. “Hey, old people. And you, too, Mum and Dad, in your perpetual fountain of youth.”

  Her mother smiled affectionately at her.

  Her father instantly snapped out of his stony fugue state and flashed her one of his heart-warming smiles. “How’s the countryside?”

  Marie shrugged. “Same as always. Still the countryside.”

  “Marie,” Bres said, smiling. “Good to see you.”

  Siobhan signed her hello.

  Marie returned the sign.

  Ryan brightened, looking up from his plate of half-finished, batter-fried cod, and said, “Hey, kiddo.”

  “Kiddo?” Marie said, frowning. “You haven’t called me kiddo since I was twelve or something.”

  Ryan blushed. “Marie, then. Hello, Marie. I only meant…”

  “Sweetheart,” Mum said. “Be nice to your godfather.”

  “I am nice.” Marie shook her head. “I’m also twenty-three, not a kiddo.” She reined in her irritation. “What are you all up to? Wait…let me guess. Still trying to solve the problem of the Dearg-Due?” She lowered herself to the worn burgundy leather seat and bumped her mother’s hip with her own. “Scoot over, Ma.”

  Mum willingly obliged, then leaned over to kiss Marie’s cheek.

  Marie breathed in comfort and love radiating from her mom, embedded in a cloud of lavender scented shampoo. “What makes you think you have any control over the supernatural? You know this is all busy-work you do here in the BSG, right? Is it a way to kill time? Because, if you’re bored, I could put you to work. Each of you could crew a station with water and other supplies for my runs.” She grinned.

  “That does sound more pleasant,” Dad said. “But your mother has a new idea of how to bring the Dearg-Due to peace. And your mother always gets her way.” He smiled indulgently at her.

  “What is it, Mum? Tell me the latest.” Marie smiled. She purposefully avoided looking at Ryan, who sat directly across from her. Why did I snap at him? He’s always nice and playful with me.

  When she was a child, he played with her, fetching her dollies and having tea parties in her bedroom. When she turned sixteen and rabidly hormonal, she confided in him about boy trouble and mothers who tear into their children at the slightest provocation. Lately, though, her attraction for him brought an awkward tension to the dynamic.

  “Oh, I don’t have anything of substance, yet.” Mum sighed. “Bres and I have been trying to test electromagnetic energies and such, to see if there are ways of transforming it. That poor soul. She’s got to be miserable, what with her endless thirst for killing. I’ll find a way to bring her peace if it’s the last thing I do. Imagine, being trapped in an undead body for three centuries and more to come, because you’re still trying to exact revenge for your asshole of a father deciding to marry you off to a jerk, instead of allowing you to marry the man you adored.” She turned away from Marie and focused her gaze on her Marie’s dad, probably giving him one of those embarrassing goo-goo eyes looks.

  Marie stared at her fingernails for a few seconds. Then, she said, “You two will be alive forever. What’s the rush?”

  “Lassi’s got more compassion than anyone I know,” Bres said. “Except for Cillian. If there’s a way to be found to restore peace to the Dearg-Due’s soul, your parents will find it.”

  “I thought you were half of the science
team, Bres,” Marie said. “And you two lovebirds bring your own brand of care to the team.” She waved a hand between Bres and Siobhan, then lifted her mug to her lips and sipped.

  “I’m dabbling, true,” Bres said. “In the science, not the love. Fully committed on that end.” He placed his arm around Siobhan’s shoulders and squeezed.

  “And aren’t you and Dad still capable of diving to the bottom of the ocean and retrieving the right rocks?” Marie asked her mother.

  “Of course. We can do it until the end of time. We have fun in the sea, don’t we, sweetheart?” her mother said, glancing at Marie’s father.

  He gave a low growl.

  Ryan cleared his throat. “No more talk of tentacle sex, if you please. Once is enough to scar one’s brain for life.”

  He side-eyed Marie.

  It sent a pleasurable shock through her belly. She turned her head to smile at him.

  Too late. Ryan had already gone back to fiddling with his fork.

  She looked away, turning her thoughts back to the Dearg-Due. A frightening thought slithered through her brain, accompanied by a shiver. “You haven’t…I mean there’s been no sign of the vampire bitch, has there? You told me there have been no occurrences since before I was born.”

  “No, sweetheart,” her father said. “And we want to keep it that way. We’re being proactive, not simply doing what’s always been done. If we can find a good solution, your ma and I can get onto other things besides a monthly swim to the bottom of the sea.”

  “At least as far as rocks are concerned. We can still swim in the sea,” Mum said, training her gaze on him.

  “Oh, brother. Let’s move on to other topics, shall we?” Marie said, rolling her eyes.

  The front door opened, and a familiar, if unwelcome, figure shuffled in—Inspector Brown.

  “What’s Inspector Brown doing here? She never arrives bearing good tidings,” Marie whisper-spoke.

  Ryan turned to see. He fidgeted in his seat, and then lifted his hand in greeting.

  Inspector Brown ignored him, training her gaze on the floor.

  Ryan stared at his hand as if it had betrayed him. “Oh, she pops in from time to time for a pint and a bite to eat. You’re usually out running.”

  He knows when I’m out running? Marie turned cartwheels in her mind.

  “She doesn’t look very happy,” she added, eager to stoke the connection with Ryan.

  “She’s not a happy woman,” Ryan said. “She feels it one of her greatest failures to have never solved the mystery of all the supernatural murders which occurred in Ballynagaul.” He spoke in a low whisper.

  Only a handful of people knew that the murders of past times were caused by the Dearg-Due and the banshee. And the BSG had vowed to keep it that way. Most assumed those horrific murders to be the work of insane madmen.

  Marie currently sat with most of those who knew. Her twin brother and Paul, Siobhan and Bres’s son, were the only others who knew everything. Marie glanced at everyone at the table, nodding sagely.

  “And, she might never come to Ballynagaul again,” Ryan continued. “She’s set to retire at the end of this month. Apparently, she owns a house along the wild Atlantic coast. Rumor has it, she’ll squirrel away in her coastal dwelling, and that will be that.”

  A thick, weighted silence fell upon the table as if Ryan had chimed the death knell. If the BSG still hadn’t found a solution to the Dearg-Due’s perpetual misery, what chance did any of them have at putting the vampire to her final rest?

  Still…her parents would continue to keep Ballynagaul safe, right? They’d just do their job, year after year, through the centuries.

  A strange, shivery fear-thought crawled up her spine. What if something besides the Dearg-Due were to slither into their midst?

  Chapter 3

  Tuesday mid-morning – Paul

  It might not have been the smartest idea to wear a Greek freedom fighter costume to class. Dressed in the flowing garb of an Armatoloi—a Christian Greek militia from the 1800s—Paul had thought he looked dashing when he checked himself out in the mirror this morning. Now, standing before his class of miscreants, lecturing on the philhellene and romantic legend Lord Byron, he withered inside, like a flower in a vase with no water.

  On the green chalkboard behind him, he’d written facts about Lord Byron in his neat penmanship. He doubted if any of the students had read what he wrote.

  Half the students were nearly comatose.

  The other half stared at him, looking perplexed.

  “That hat looks like something an American Smurf wears,” Timmy O’Reilly said. He slouched in his chair like his next move might be a slither to the floor.

  “Sit up, Timmy,” Paul snapped.

  The boy straightened.

  “And it’s actually called a Phrygian. All the freedom fighters wore them.” He smiled, but he wanted to rip the red soft felt cap from his scalp and yank it over Timmy’s entire head.

  “Where’d you get a skirt like that?” Timmy’s twin brother, Tommy, asked.

  “It’s not a skirt, it’s a Fustanella. The Armatoloi liked the ease of movement the Fustanella provided, much like the Scots wore kilts to battle,” Paul said. In fact, as he walked to work this morning, he had enjoyed the unrestrained freedom of movement, as well as the cool air wafting over the three-piece, grapes-and-sausage set dangling between his thighs.

  “That Lord Byron dude…wasn’t he a total player?” Timmy asked.

  “He was often involved in romantic scandals, sexual adventures, and disgrace, yes,” Paul said. He started to perch on his desk, but then remembered he had no boxers on. He sure didn’t want to give the students a show and be reprimanded for his own disgraceful scandal.

  “So, he wore the skirt with no underwear for the ease of sliding into a chick’s bajingo, am I right?” Timmy held up his hand to his brother for a high five.

  Tommy’s hand connected with a loud smack.

  The class snickered and laughed.

  “Mr. O’Reilly, this is a classroom where we are studying English literature, not physical anatomy,” Paul reprimanded. “Watch your language.”

  Still, Timmy had a point. For a second, Paul considered how easy it would be to slip between Anne’s sweet legs. All he had to do was get Anne somewhere private and romantic, lift the front of his Fustanella and reveal his eager weenus.

  A student coughed.

  Paul tore himself free of his fantasy and turned his attention back to the class. “Lord Byron wasn’t an armatoloi. He didn’t wear this attire. He fought in Greece’s War of Independence in the mid-1800s, using his wealth to repair ships of the Greek fleet and set up his own military squad.”

  “Are you wearing underwear, Mr. Riordan?” Ciara Williams, a dark-haired girl, asked.

  Flames of heat licked his neck and cheeks. “That’s hardly an appropriate question, Miss Williams.”

  “That’s a yes, then,” Ciara said, smirking.

  Waves of laughter rippled through the class.

  Paul searched his mind for an escape route, a change of topic, anything.

  When the door opened, he breathed a sigh of relief. His relief faded when Mrs. Xavier, Father Gillespie’s secretary, appeared, her face etched with panic or anxiety or distress…or maybe all the above. She didn’t look happy as she tottered into the class on spindly, varicose-veined legs. Her white hair, cut in a page boy’s bob complete with bangs, coupled with her long skirt, made her look like someone from medieval times.

  “I’m so sorry to bother you, Mr. Riordan but could you please head to the office?” she said, her expression pinched and drawn. “There’s a matter of some urgency in Father Gillespie’s office. I’ll be happy to watch the class until you return.”

  Paul hesitated. Mrs. Xavier was old. She’d been at St. Christopher’s since time began. She would be no match for this class.

  Timmy O’Reilly snickered.

  “Timmy,” Paul snapped. “Mind your manners.”

&
nbsp; “Yes, Mr. Riordan, I sure will.” Timmy smirked at Tommy.

  “You, too, Tommy. I’ll expect Mrs. Xavier will give me a full report when I return.” Paul took one last glance at the ancient woman before dashing out of the classroom.

  As he scurried down the hall, his mind raced. Why would I be needed? Is a student sick or in trouble? Is Elizabeth Murphy’s mother in the hospital again? Did I do something, say something? Is it my attire? He rounded the corner, right as Anne emerged from Father Gillespie’s office.

  She looked ghostly white and shaken, with tears in her eyes.

  Paul raced to catch up with her. “Anne. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s not my place to say,” she managed to choke out, glancing at his costume. “Go,” she said in a shaky voice, her finger pointing at the door. She gulped a couple of deep breaths. “Go and see for yourself. I…I need to go compose myself.” She turned and rushed away.

  Paul’s mouth dropped open as he watched her retreating form. I should go soothe her. But when had she ever accepted help from him? She wouldn’t even let him carry boxes of art supplies to her classroom, choosing, instead, to trolley them on a wheeled cart.

  Reluctantly, he turned away from her and twisted the brass doorknob. As he entered the office, his head drew back at the sight of Inspector Brown sitting at Father Gillespie’s desk. The desk sat smack-dab in the center of his plain, white-walled office. One lone window, in constant need of washing, overlooked the back parking lot.

  “Riordan,” she said, adding a grim-faced nod. With her head backlit by the window, which opened to the cheery, sunny morning, her face looked shadowed. Her gray hair, cut short in a military kind of style, clung to her scalp. She scrutinized his appearance, her eyes peering through gun-slit narrow eyelids.

  “Inspector Brown,” he said, dangling on an inner clothesline of embarrassment. He snatched off his cap and clutched it by his side. “Where’s Father Gillespie?”