When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (6 page)

“Oh, is that all?” Seamus took a deep breath. “Can you prove any of this?”

“Come and see.” Mamieo dangled the keys in front of him.

Four

“S
HUT
the door, Finn,” Mamieo said as Seamus took the keys.

“Mamieo, I don’t think we should go anywhere with this Scottish idiot.”

“Set him an example, boyo. Get back in the car.”

“Mamieo—”

“Give him time. The Almighty set about mending my heart by sending me a child out of the night. But it’s taken me thirty years to get the point.”

“Which point?” Finn was still holding the door open.

“That the Almighty heard a Highborn child cry in the night, and sent me looking. That was providence for the both of us. Now
I
called for help, and Seamus here is the one who answered.”

“You are saying the Almighty sent you into Mag Mell because a goblin child prayed?” Seamus asked.

“Did I say she prayed? Aileen had no more idea of the Almighty that night than you do, you heathen Scot. I said she cried out for help. The difference between us was she knew she didn’t know everything, and I thought I did.”

“Sounds familiar,” Finn said. “Are you sure you’re not part Scots, Mamieo?”

“Get in the van,” Mamieo snapped. “That should sound familiar too, boyo. I’ve said it three times.”

“That police car has been past us twice,” Mr. Wylltson said. “I never thought I’d be worried about the police.”

Finn climbed back in, and Seamus started the van.

“I’m not asking you to believe me,” Mamieo told Seamus. “I’m suggesting that if you shut your mouth and listen, you might learn a thing or two you don’t know. Or you can let us out on the street and spend the rest of your life wondering.”

“I’m listening.”

“Good. John Paul was about to tell us what happened at the park when you started going on about your law career. The man might get the tale told if you don’t interrupt.”

“Fine.” Seamus pulled into traffic again.

“Well,” Mr. Wylltson began, “I could
feel
the shadow men’s presence before I started singing.”

Seamus looked at Mamieo, his eyebrows up.

“And that’s not interrupting?” Mamieo said. “Put your eyebrows down, boyo, before they get stuck that way. John Paul has no second sight, but he is a direct descendent of the Welsh bard Myrddyn Wyllt, the real Merlin. Our wee Aiden, Teagan’s six-year-old
bráthair
, has Myrddyn on his father’s side and Amergin, the Milesian bard whose songs drove Fear Doirich and the Sídhe into Mag Mell, on his
máthair
’s, and second sight as well. That’s important for you to know if you’re to understand what’s happening. After Aileen was killed, John Paul was taken to Mag Mell and tortured by the Dark Man.”

“Fear Doirich?”

“Himself,” Mamieo said.

“Cops following us.” Finn was looking over his shoulder.

Seamus nodded but didn’t say anything. Teagan leaned forward so that she could watch the cruiser in the side-view mirror. She knew exactly what her father meant. The police had always seemed friendly before. Helpful, even. Now they were a little scary.

“John has no Traveler blood in him,” Mamieo went on, “and he’s not an
aingeal
or a Highborn, and as those are the only creatures that can walk completely present in any world of creation, John Paul’s body was damaged by stepping into Mag Mell, his mind almost destroyed.”

“Not my mind, Ida, just a few of my memories. And I’m getting better.”

“How did he get out of Mag Mell?”

“His children have Highborn blood in them, from their
máthair
, don’t they? My Aileen half grew up in Mag Mell. After she died her ashes were scattered in the library park. They woke the trees and opened a doorway that shouldn’t have been —the doorway Finn, Teagan, and Aiden went through to find their da. Raynor has been guarding it to keep the shadows and goblinkind from stepping into Chicago.”

The police cruiser turned down a side street, and Teagan snuggled under Finn’s arm again. Raynor may have been keeping the shadows in, but he was also waiting for Fear Doirich to step out. The Dark Man’s spells kept the holy angels out of Mag Mell.

“Teagan and Finn went back to Mag Mell,” Mamieo said. “Tea was going to drag Fear Doirich out and give him to the angel. But it didn’t work out that way. Which brings us to John Paul standing shoulder to shoulder with an
aingeal
as a wall of vileness tried to roll out of Mag Mell while the children went off to deal with the nasty creatures at the school.”

“He won’t have to stand guard there anymore,” Mr. Wylltson said. “As I said, I could feel the shadows. And just after the kids left, something came walking through the park that I
could
see.”

“Hellhounds?” Teagan guessed.

“Hellhounds!” Seamus actually turned his head this time. “There are
hellhounds
loose in Chicago?”

“Watch the road, boyo,” Mamieo said. “The hellhounds have been dead for weeks. Finn killed one, and Raynor killed the other.”

John Wylltson shook his head. “It wasn’t any kind of animal. I saw two ragged, dirty children walking toward me. I remembered that Mamieo had taken Aileen from Mag Mell as a child, and I started toward them thinking they might need help. But when I got closer, I could see that they weren’t flesh-and-blood children. They were statues, like you’d find over a child’s grave. I was close enough to see that they were weeping ashes from empty eye sockets when Raynor grabbed me. He covered my face with his hand and shouted for Joe to run—and then there was fire all around us.”

“What were they?” Finn asked. “Why would they burn down the park?”

“I don’t know,” John Wylltson said. “Raynor was too busy trying to put out the fire on Joe to explain, and Joe was too busy protecting the invisible phooka.”

“Joe’s the Green Man who planned and planted this continent,” Teagan explained before Seamus could ask. “Raynor called him to town to talk to the old willow in the park. The willow’s roots had grafted onto roots of trees in Mag Mell. That’s how the door opened.”

“He’s all right?” Finn looked worried. “I owe him. Joe helped me get into Mag Mell after your daughter broke up with me.”

“That kiss in the park did not look like you had broken up,” Mr. Wylltson said disapprovingly.

“It didn’t, did it?” Finn grinned, and Teagan felt a blush spread all the way to her toes. “The tragedy was temporary. You know I’m the man for her, John.”

Teagan caught Seamus McGillahee’s eyes in the mirror, studying her.

“I know you
say
you’re the man for her,” Mr. Wylltson said.

“Tell me what I have to do to prove it to you. I’ll do it.”

“Ah.” Mr. Wylltson rubbed his chin. “Now, that’s an interesting offer, Mr. Mac Cumhaill. I believe I’ll take you up on it.”

“For heaven’s sake, John Paul,” Mamieo said. “The boy went into Mag Mell and brought your girl out. Isn’t that enough?”

“Actually, I brought
him
out,” Teagan said, but everyone ignored her.

“No, Mamieo.” John Wylltson sat up taller. “It’s not enough. My daughter is too young to be serious about anyone, and much too young to get married.”

“A phooka?” Seamus interrupted. “You mentioned a phooka?”

“I brought him out of Mag Mell as well,” Teagan said. “But—Joe was on fire, Dad?”

“Raynor put him out. Then we all had to get out of the park before the fire department arrived. Joe carried the phooka, and Raynor helped me. After he’d brought us safely to the house, he went back for his stuff. That’s one fast-moving angel.”

“Isn’t he?” Finn agreed. “I had a devil of a time getting past him when I jumped into Mag Mell.”

“Wait,” Teagan said.
“Is Gil at our house?”

“Who’s Gil?” Seamus asked.

“The phooka,” Teagan and Finn said at the same time.

“Joe is watching over him in the backyard, so there’s no need to worry. And speaking of our house,” Mr. Wylltson said, “if you turn right at the next street, and then take the next left, we’ll be there.”

Seamus made the turn in a calm and almost legal way, but there were no parking spaces in front of the Wylltsons’ house. A group of teens were standing on the sidewalk—three boys. No, two boys and a girl, Teagan realized, as the one who’d been squatting stood and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.

They were too similar not to be from the same family, from their long, thin legs to their multitoned hair. Red and black. It had to be dyed.

Finn turned to see where she was looking.

“Who’s that lot, then?” he asked.

“I’ve never seen them around here before,” Teagan said.

“What in the name of Peter and Paul are they?” Mamieo asked.

The girl met Teagan’s eyes and laughed, her mouth a little too wide . . . a little too
toothy
. The boys had bulky torsos and mohawks—not the kind with shaved sides and spikes, but short on the sides and combed to a crest. The laughing girl had a white streak in her mottled mane.

“I don’t know,” Finn said. “But I’m guessing they’re not from around here.”

“Should I stop?” Seamus asked.

Finn reached for the door latch, and Teagan tensed. If he went out that door, she was going after him. Because whatever they were, she was absolutely sure he shouldn’t face them alone, even if he was humming like a high-power line again.

“No,” Mr. Wylltson said. “They’re leaving.” He was right— the teens had turned and were loping away down the street. “And Raynor is just inside. We’ll be parked in a moment.”

But they weren’t. They circled the block, and this time Seamus managed to make two wrong turns on one-way streets, which would have taken them past the library if the street hadn’t been blocked off.

“Is that the HAZMAT truck?” Teagan asked, sitting forward in her seat.

“Detective Gilkyson did say Homeland Security was involved,” Seamus reminded her.

Not only was it the HAZMAT truck; its crew was fully suited up, as if they were dealing with dangerous chemicals or radiation. One was even carrying a Geiger counter. “Aren’t they overreacting?”

Mr. Wylltson shook his head. “It was a . . .
different
fire. I don’t even know how to describe it.”

The teens were long gone when Seamus finally made it back to the Wylltsons’ street and found a parking space a block away.

They’d walked halfway up the block when they found the corpse of a
cat-sídhe
on the sidewalk. Mamieo and Seamus just stepped over it, but Teagan couldn’t bring herself to. It was starting to flatten, the ligaments loosening and tissues beginning to break down. The creature’s babylike hands were clenched into fists, its almost human mouth frozen in a scream, and its tongue swollen and blackened. The open sores on its belly suggested that it had died of disease, not violence. But from the look of it, something with teeth had been tearing at the corpse’s already damaged belly. Teagan glanced at Finn. This was where the teens had been standing. Where the girl who’d wiped her mouth had been kneeling.

Finn took her hand, and Teagan was sure he felt her grief for the
cat-sídhe
as clearly as she felt the electrical impulses in his body.

“Rosebud?” Mr. Wylltson asked. “Are you all right?”

Mamieo and Seamus turned around.

“There’s a dead
cat-sídhe
on the sidewalk,” Teagan explained. “You’ll have to step over it, Dad.”

“I wondered what that smell was.” Terrestrial bacteria apparently didn’t need second sight. The dead
cat-sídhe
gave off the cloying smell of putrefying flesh.

“It’s Maggot Cat,” Finn said as Mr. Wylltson stepped into the street to avoid the body. “The leader of the beasties that chased us all over town.”

“You don’t usually see the beasties dead,” Mamieo said. “They crawl into nooks and crannies to die.”

“Maybe he couldn’t make it to a hole,” Teagan said. “He was outside our house last night when the
sluagh
showed up looking for me.” Apparently, the
sluagh
didn’t care whether you were dying or simply bilocating. A soul stepping out of its flesh was irresistible to them. Teagan shuddered. “If it hadn’t followed Maggot Cat away, it would have caught me.”

“He didn’t help you on purpose. It wouldn’t have followed him if he hadn’t been dying.”

“He was still a person.”

“A person?” Seamus said.

“He had a mind and a will,” Teagan explained. “He was a person.”

“An evil little person with an evil little mind who tried his best to do us harm.” Finn eyed the storm drain on the other side of the street. “But if the
sluagh
took his soul, I am sorry. I wouldn’t wish that even on a
cat-sídhe
. You go on. I’ll tuck this away in the alley, and we’ll give him a decent burial when we have a chance.”

Seamus shook his head. “It’s a
cat-sídhe
. Kick it down the storm drain and let the
sluagh
who took its soul deal with the stink.”

“Na,” Finn said. “Tea wouldn’t like that.”

Seamus gave Teagan another look, more worried than the one he’d thrown her in the van.

“Oh, lord,” Mr. Wylltson said. “Here come Lennie and Sophia.” Mrs. Santini and Lennie, her eighteen-year-old son, lived just across the street from the Wylltsons.

“I’ll head them off,” Mr. Wylltson said. “She’s going to want to talk to you, Teagan. I’m sure she’s heard that something happened at school. I’ll be in as soon as I can.”

They left Finn to take care of the
cat-sídhe
, and Teagan and Mamieo hurried Seamus up the street.

“Welcome to the widdershins world of the Wylltsons,” Mamieo said when they reached the steps. “Things are a bit . . . different here.”

Five

S
EAMUS
followed Mamieo through the door but Teagan hesitated, looking down the street in the direction the teens had run. Aside from Mrs. Santini’s large lavender housecoat and fuzzy pink slippers, there was nothing unsettling to be seen. Nothing otherworldly, at least. That would all be waiting inside the house.