Musgrave shook her head.
The leader smiled and lit another cigarette. “Well, they finally grew tired of the game and tossed her away. Trouble is, they left her with child—not a single birth, as a human might have, but a litter.
“She fled her homeland and came here, stealing passage on one of the famine ships. Deep in the forests of this new land, hiding from both men and the native spirits on whose lands she encroached, she gave birth to her litter. She did her best with her unruly pack, raising them from pups to young men. But every time she looked upon them, she was put in mind of their sires, and finally she could bear the memories no more. So she left them to fend for themselves and went wandering.
“Does any of this sound familiar yet?”
Musgrave shook her head, though she could guess where the story was going. “I don’t know what hardships she faced,” the leader went on, “though loneliness must have been one. Loss of place another. But finally she found a haven and though she didn’t call for us, blood calls to blood, and we came anyway.”
“She’s your mother,” Musgrave said.
“And a loving woman, too, don’t you think?”
Musgrave ignored the comment. “So you’ve never even been to Ireland.”
“Ah, well as close as. We’ve visited by way of the otherworld, but there’s not much room there for the likes of us. It’s got its own hard men and patience isn’t one of their virtues either—though marking and protecting their own territory certainly is.”
Musgrave nodded, her thoughts turning back to Nuala and her relationship with the wolves.
“So,” she said. “The animosity you feel towards Nuala comes from her having abandoned you.”
The leader of the Gentry laughed. “Not at all. We got along fine. We had the city, she had her house on the hill, and if sometimes we sniffed around her woods, we kept our distance and took care not to disturb her charge.”
“So what happened?”
“You woke ambition in us.”
“I?”
“Oh, don’t play the innocent shite. All your talk of gaining power and wresting land from the native spirits, of being more than men so we deserved whatever we could take and hold—what did you think that v’oke in us?”
“But—”
Again that mocking laugh. “Don’t worry. We’ve no regrets. But you can see how our mam might not be too pleased to see us turning out like the father.”
Musgrave nodded. “She set her own sights too low.”
“Perhaps. But we set ours too high.”
“No, we can still salvage something out of this. Ellie can still make the copy of the mask, infuse it with her untapped geasan…”
Her voice trailed off as the leader shook his head.
“We’re done now,” he said. “If we’re not gone soon, the pup will be after us in all his buggering glory. We mean to be long gone before he begins his hunt.”
He stood up, took a drag from his cigarette, then dropped the butt into the pool.
“I’d look to your own skin,” he added. “The pup won’t be any more enamored with you.”
Musgrave held her breath, but the cigarette butt only hissed and went out. Father Salmon didn’t stir.
“Wait,” she said, standing up as well.
When the leader began to turn away, she caught him by the arm. A growl rose in his chest and he pulled free.
“You can’t leave,” she said. “Where will you go?”
“West. I hear there’s great crate on the coast.”
“But you can’t leave me here on my own. If you can’t stand up to the creature, what can I do?”
He shrugged. “Grow old. Die.”
Again he turned, and again she caught his arm.
“We can still make the new mask work,” she said.
This time the leader didn’t pull his arm away. Instead, he put his hands on either side of her face.
“You know what I won’t miss?” he said.
Her voice felt trapped in the back of her throat and his grip was too firm for her to shake her head. But he didn’t seem to require an answer.
“Your endless schemes and prattling,” he told her.
Then he snapped her neck and let her go. She went limp, dead before her body could crumple to the ground. The leader looked down at her for a long moment, then spat on her body and turned away.
“In future,” he told his companions, “remind me never to listen to the advice of women.”
The others laughed, then followed him in a pack as he led them west, their path wandering in and out of the spiritworld to throw off the scent they left behind.
11
It was only about twenty blocks to the hospital, but Miki wasn’t all that sure she’d actually make it. They were long blocks, and the streets and sidewalks had grown even more treacherous than they were earlier when she and Fiona had made their way to the store. It was impossible to walk normally. She had to feel her way along the sides of buildings to keep her balance, sliding one foot gingerly in front of the other. Crossing streets was a nightmare. The rain continued to fall, shifting between sheets of actual hard rain and the insistent freezing drizzle that clung to whatever it landed upon, so there was about an inch of water lying on top of the ice. When she crossed a street, she shuffled her way over the slippery surface like a very unsteady tightrope walker, arms held out from her side. The baseball bat had long been relegated to being stuck through her belt around back.
She had the streets entirely to herself. There were no pedestrians at all, which was an eerie enough feeling. The only cars she saw had been abandoned, many of them at odd angles to the sidewalks. Twice she went through intersections where there’d been an obvious accident, the cars involved having been simply pushed to the sides of the streets and left there. She assumed that the salt trucks had been by—this was downtown, after all—but you wouldn’t know it from the unsteady footing.
She really should have ice skates, she thought again. Then she could just whip up to the hospital in no time at all. Though how the ambulance would get to the store with these road conditions was another question entirely. Maybe they could put a gurney on runners and skating interns could push it to the store and back again.
She could have wept with relief when she turned a corner and saw an army vehicle inching its way down the street in her direction. Now there was the way to travel. Everyone should have one of these Bisons, a twelve-ton, eight-wheeled armored personnel carrier. With one hand on the corner of the building, she waved frantically at the vehicle. Soldiers riding on top waved back and the Bison made its way across and down the street to where she waited for it.
Who’d have thought the day would come when she’d be happy to see the army? But then, this wasn’t Ireland, and these soldiers weren’t British.
“Do you need some help, Miss?” one of the soldiers called down to her when the Bison came to a stop by her corner.
Miss? Miki thought. Now weren’t they a polite lot. A sarcastic retort rose in her mind, but she sensibly kept it in check and merely explained her problem, giving them the address of the store. She mentioned the attack, describing the Gentry merely as looters. Lord knew what they’d make of the dead one she’d left behind the counter. Maybe they wouldn’t even notice it until she could get someone to help her remove it.
“Let me give you a hand up,” the soldier said, “and you can ride back with us.”
Miki was tempted. She’d had enough of the cold and rain to last her a lifetime, but the walk had also given her time to think—about the mess she’d made of things back at the store, about how badly she’d misjudged Donal and how extreme he had gotten, but mostly about the Gentry and where they might be going. She’d seen them heading west. What lay west but Kellygnow, where Hunter told her that the Gentry had set Ellie to some task. Kellygnow, where Donal had been all too eager to have Ellie take on some commission. It took no genius to realize that the two, task and commission, were one and the same.