Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series Book 3) Read online

The woman nodded, her face pinched and white with fear.

  The shop was littered with glass and a spreading crimson pool, congealing already at its edges. The door to the street was open, the street outside as quiet as if it were three in the morning rather than the afternoon. One glance at Mr. Linehan told Pamela all she needed to know, he was beyond any sort of mortal help. She took a breath, careful not to step in the blood, though the men who had shot Mr. Linehan hadn’t taken any such precautions. If she had to lay odds on them being caught, she wouldn’t bet much more than the sheep shed. She walked swiftly back to the storeroom where the woman waited, hand still on the doorknob.

  Outside, the air seemed to hum with a high vibration. Violence, she had found through experience, left a definite energy in its wake as if the moment kept playing itself over and over long after the actual event. The warm March day had disappeared in the time she had been in the shop and a cold wind ripped down from the slopes of Slieve Gullion, slapping their faces and stinging their eyes. She scanned the area quickly. The narrow lane, the overhanging trees. The closest houses were within sight and surely within the sound of an automatic weapon blast, but there was no sign that anyone had heard anything.

  The car was parked beside the village’s old church, only a minute’s walk away.

  “Take my arm,” she said, guiding the woman’s hand to her elbow.

  “Is he… is he dead?” she asked, the gentian eyes near black.

  “Yes, he is,” Pamela said shortly, half her mind occupied with how to leave this village without being spotted, the other half trying to push away the image of Mr. Linehan’s shattered skull, with one eye still intact, staring in that thousand-yard way that said whatever he saw wasn’t of this world any longer.

  “How did you get here?” Pamela asked. “Do you live in the village?”

  “No,” the woman replied. “Someone brings me in. I live down near the border. I’m not supposed to be here today though. I—if my brother finds out I was away from home, I’ll be in terrible trouble. Please,” she said, “ye don’t understand, I have to be gone from here before the police arrive. I can’t be found by the police. I simply cannot.” The urgency fairly poured off the woman’s skin, her eyes a deeper blue, pupils dilated in panic. Pamela herself wasn’t entirely a stranger to not trusting the police, especially here in South Armagh.

  She wondered what sort of character this brother was. Not someone you’d want to run into in a dark hedgerow, that much was apparent. She helped the woman into the car and cast a glance about the empty streets. Curtains were firmly drawn and she knew it was best not to linger.

  She drove for twenty minutes straight, until they were firmly in the wilds of South Armagh, without fear of police or Army showing up. She pulled the car over on a narrow lay-by that was more hedge, ditch, and weed than it was a parking space. The events of the last hour had caught up to her so suddenly, that she felt swamped by it and unable to drive any farther.

  “I’m sorry. I just need a minute to get my breath.”

  The interior of the car was washed with the flickering shadows of leaves fretting in the stiff breeze. Raindrops flew from the hedge onto the windshield. It was strangely peaceful. The woman didn’t say anything but laid a soft hand on Pamela’s shoulder. Pamela bent her head into the steering wheel and took several deep breaths. She could feel her body slowly calm though her mind swam with the images from the shop. She could still smell the hot copper stink of blood as though it clung to her own hands and skin. She knew she wouldn’t calm entirely until Casey held her, his arms and the scent and touch of him, the final ingredient she always needed to restore a sense of order and security to the universe.

  “How far along are ye?” the woman asked, her voice gentle.

  “Seven and a half months,” Pamela said. As though understanding that it was being spoken of, the baby poked a fist out near her ribs and Pamela touched it gratefully with her free hand. She knew stress wasn’t likely to hurt the baby at this point, but she had lost too many babies ever to be completely confident until this one was safely delivered and lying in her arms.

  “The baby will be fine,” the woman said. “Ye need have no fears this time.”

  Pamela looked up to find the gentian eyes looking back at her in a way that was peculiarly comforting, despite the woman’s lack of vision. “How can you—how did you know this isn’t my first pregnancy?”

  The woman shrugged. “I just know things sometimes. There’s no explainin’ it really, for it comes an’ goes an’ generally isn’t there when I’d like it to be. But trust me when I say this babby is meant to thrive an’ grow.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Yer welcome.” The woman smiled, her face still pale and strained, but the smile was genuine and lit the gentian eyes to a soft glow that made it hard to believe such beautiful eyes could not see.

  The checkpoint at Bessbrook Mill was swarming with soldiers. She had expected it but it still gave her a jolt as they waved her over to the side. She slowed to a stop and rolled her window down. This was all routine, massacre or not. This was life in Northern Ireland, day in, day out. The soldier cocked his head in the window, rifle in the crook of his elbow.

  “I will need you both to get out.” She nodded and opened her door, getting out slowly. The soldier was young. Most of them were, but this one looked especially newly minted. He eyed her stomach with a look of alarm. She sighed.

  “I’m going to go help my friend get out,” she said, speaking calmly but firmly as she had learned to do at every checkpoint. Casey had told her long ago, ‘Make sure ye don’t look nor sound as if ye’ve anything to hide, even if ye do. Nerves have a smell to them an’ the soldiers are attuned to that—not to mention they’re mighty nervy themselves an’ as like to shoot ye by accident.’

  She made certain to keep her hands out and visible at all times, to never make a sudden move and to look the soldiers in the eyes whenever they asked a question. She never volunteered more information than what was strictly required either. How anyone ever dared to go through these checkpoints with weapons in their boot or a fugitive in their back seat, was beyond her.

  The woman got out and stood by the car, one hand resting lightly on it for a second, and then withdrawn. She looked directly at the soldier and smiled lightly. Pamela watched with growing worry. It was obvious that she did not want the soldiers to know she was blind for some reason. Was it a matter of pride or, and here Pamela had a frisson of fear shoot through her belly, was it a matter of identification? And if so, just who the hell was this woman?

  They were through the checkpoint in short order, the soldiers already dismissing them as two harmless women, looking beyond them down the road, scanning the horizon, always alert for trouble, both the scent and sight of it.

  “Now where can I take you?” she asked as soon as they were on the narrow roadway again, the hedgerows thick and dark above their heads, filling the car with shadow and a strange feeling of security.

  The woman sighed heavily. “There’s no avoidin’ it further, I suppose. D’ye happen to know where the Murray farm is?”

  “Noah Murray’s farm?” Pamela asked, not even bothering to disguise her dismay.

  “Aye,” the woman’s tone was dry. “I thought ye might be familiar with it. Ye see, Noah is my brother. I believe ye’ve made his acquaintance.”

  “You could say that,” Pamela replied, mouth dry as dust. “He threatened to kill me.”

  “Christ,” Casey Riordan said for the fifth time in as many minutes.

  “I’m sorry,” Pamela said softly. They were lying on their bed and Pamela had just finished telling him about the events of the afternoon. There was a fire in the grate, hissing softly, the house itself quiet and comforting as the night closed in around it.

  “Ye’ve nothin’ to apologize for woman, though I will say ye’ve a talent for
findin’ serious trouble.” His words were terse, but the hand that stroked the mound of her belly was not and Pamela knew he needed to work his way through the fear of what might have happened to her and the baby that afternoon.

  “Why Mr. Linehan though? He doesn’t have any political importance. He’s just a man with a shop and a family.”

  “It’s likely there was no reason, or someone said something an’ it rolled downhill gatherin’ accusations an’ more lies as it went until someone saw him as a viable target. They wanted to make a point. Bloody insane though, right there in the heart of Noah Murray’s fiefdom.”

  Still, this hadn’t been an operation by Noah Murray and his men. This attack was directed at him, a clear message that there was a group of Loyalists somewhere that had the effrontery and insanity to kill in the midst of his territory.

  “Will the police go after them, do you think?”

  “It’s South Armagh, darlin’. The police have reason to exercise a great deal of caution down that way. They don’t run the show down there, the South Armagh Brigade does, an’ ye step too hard on Noah Murray’s toes and he’ll shoot yer feet off. Trust me, if the man finds out who’s behind today’s killin’, the breaths remainin’ to them will be in the single digits.”

  Pamela knew Casey was not exaggerating for Noah Murray had threatened her own life merely because she had voiced suspicion of some of the goings-on down in South Armagh some time back.

  “I don’t want ye to stop there anymore. I don’t even want ye drivin’ through there. D’ye hear? Christ, when I think what might have happened to you an’ the babe today…”

  He trailed off, his hand resting firmly over the bit of the baby that was sticking out. A wee foot, she thought.

  He was right. Police were often targeted and just as often murdered in South Armagh. There was a reason the Armagh Brigade posted signs declaring their autonomy from one end of the county to the other; it was simply because it was true.

  She touched him in the dark, seeking the reassurance of the big body, the shelter it gave her so easily. Also giving reassurance in turn, her presence and breath and warmth telling him all was well, she was here and she was safe. She breathed deep of his scent, allowing it to slide through her blood, cell deep, calming her.

  After Kate—for that was her name—had dropped the bomb about her brother’s identity, they had been silent for the rest of the drive.

  The Murray farm straddled the border and was reached by narrow, twisting lanes, almost claustrophobic with thick blackthorn hedges that rose far above the roof of the car.

  “Just drop me at the edge of the stone wall,” Kate had said. “There’s a space there where ye can turn about. The wall runs up to the corner of the house so I can make my way easily from there. That way if Noah is home and sees me I’ll just say I was out walking and lost track of time.”

  Kate had sat for a few moments, as though hesitating over something.

  “Do you need me to walk you closer to the house?” Pamela asked, thinking there were few things in the world she would less like doing but feeling she had to offer, considering the circumstances.

  “No, I can manage fine once I touch the stones,” Kate said. “It’s just that—I—I should like to see yer face. Might I touch ye, to know how it is ye look?”

  She said, “Of course,” for the afternoon had forged an intimacy that more casual circumstances would not have allowed.

  She recalled now the touch of the woman’s hands on her face, light as rain, gliding over her bones, tracing the shape of her mouth, seeing with fingers that were as sensitive as a moth’s wings, pausing on Pamela’s scar, a question in her touch. So she had told her about the man with the board with the nail sticking out of it, about the raw hatred that had rendered him more blind than Kate could ever be.

  Then the fingers had traced the round of her eyelids, stroking feather light along her lashes, cupping the shells of her ears, dipping down over her neck. It had been oddly intimate and yet, after what they had been through, not awkward in the least. Kate had bunched Pamela’s hair up in coils and then pressed it to her own face, letting it fall slowly through her fingers.

  Her skin had shimmered as though the woman’s fingers had left heat and light in sensory pathways all over her. As swollen as her body was with late pregnancy, her skin felt fine as drawn silk and her nerve endings were as waterweed, swayed by the gentlest of currents.

  The few moments had been surreal, a time scooped out of the horrors of the afternoon, and so it had seemed natural for the woman to seek out the round of her belly and cup the hard base of it in her hands, as though she could communicate without words to the child inside. The baby had responded with a slow, deep roll that shifted Pamela’s entire body. Kate had merely laid her cheek, light as dandelion down, against the belly and stayed there for a moment. It had seemed more than natural to rest her own hand on the woman’s head and feel their respective pulses echo with blood that was still warm and moving, that still gave life and breath.

  She had felt an odd sense of loss when Kate got out of the car, as though this woman might have been, had their lives been different, a good friend. Now, here in the dark, she felt that pang of loss again like a small splinter in her heart.

  “I liked her,” she said, voice quiet with regret.

  Casey squeezed her hand and gathered her closer to his comfort. “I know, darlin’.”

  Chapter Ten

  April 1973

  Conor

  The big ash tree had succumbed to the storm and lay now in a welter of branches across the top of the drive. Casey swore, though the words were torn from his lips by the ferocious wind that still blew hard enough to bend a man double. The yard was a mess of broken branches and half-furled leaves, the pale mint green of new growth. The shed roof was partway torn off and flapping in the wind, making a sharp singing noise between hard cracks. He sighed, another thing that would need fixing. He’d battened Paudeen down securely in his small sheep shed. Built solid from two-by-fours and half-inch plywood, it would withstand the wind well enough, if the bloody sheep’s bleating didn’t cause it to fall down first. He turned and hunched his shoulders against the stinging rain. There wasn’t much he could do until the weather died back a bit.

  He ought to have known something fierce was brewing the evening before, for Pamela had been restless as a cat in a houseful of mice, saying she’d an odd taste in her mouth that she couldn’t wash out with any amount of toothpaste and water. She hadn’t slept much during the night either, saying the wind had gotten into her bones and she had to walk about. He knew it wasn’t the wind but that her body was preparing her for the imminent arrival of the baby. Two more weeks before the child was due to present itself to the world at large. Thank goodness they still had a bit of time. What with the storm and all, it looked as though they’d be digging their way out for a couple of days.

  Casey entered the house on a gust of leaves and horizontal rain.

  “It’s perishin’ out there, darlin’,” he said, shaking the rain from his hair. “Bloody ash tree came down across the drive so I hope the cupboards are stocked ‘cause we’ll be stuck for a day or two until I can get the thing cut up an’…” he trailed off for Pamela was clutching the sideboard with one hand, her belly with the other and staring at the floor in dismay, where a puddle of water was slowly spreading across the polished pine boards.

  “What’s wrong, Jewel?” he asked feeling a jolt of alarm shoot through his spine and settle in his stomach queasily.

  “I think the baby is coming now,” she said. “My water’s just broken.”

  “Now?” Casey echoed, feeling the bottom of his stomach drop out. “What the hell do ye mean, NOW?”

  Pamela glared at him, breathing out heavily through her nose. “I mean the baby is coming now, and it’s too late to move me, or to go get a doctor or to saw the
fucking tree up so you can actually get out of here. You’re going to have to help me deliver the baby here, man, so if you want to boil water or get a knife to cut the pain, you better bloody fucking hurry.”

  The swearing convinced Casey as little else would have. In some respects, Pamela was a good Catholic girl and she only swore like this under extreme duress.

  “Fock,” he said, for lack of anything else that would sum up his current state of emotions.

  “That’s been done,” she said, with what sounded like a laugh. “And now we’re dealing with the consequences thereof.”

  “I can’t believe yer makin’ bawdy jokes at a time like this,” he said as an irrational wave of annoyance swept through him. Bloody woman making jokes on the one hand and telling him he had to deliver a baby on the other. Jaysus Murphy and the little green men, was she mad thinking he could deliver a baby?

  She gave him a pointed look and clutched at a chair as another contraction seized her.

  “Come on, Jewel, we have to get ye up to the bedroom,” he said, trying to infuse calm into his voice and failing miserably.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, as he put an arm behind her knees and one round her back.

  “Carryin’ ye up the stairs, woman, I’ll not have ye droppin’ the baby on the way up.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” she said crossly, “I can walk.”

  Casey merely shook his head and started up the stairs. “Lord, woman, ye’ve put on a bit of weight, no?”

  A green glare told him that humor wasn’t appreciated just at present.

  He deposited her on the bed but she stood up again as quickly as her belly would allow.

  “I’ll not lie down just yet. I need you to go get some old blankets. There’s a clean stack in the linen closet by the baby’s room. Go get them, please.” Her eyes were closed and a fine beading of sweat stood out against her forehead.

  “Old blankets,” he repeated blankly.