The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance Part 42

Would wine have the same effect on Fae as it had on humans? She was about to find out.

She and Ulick talked as always, but this time over wine. "I have not had wine for a good long while," he said when he refilled his gla.s.s the first time. "I had better take care, or I might make a fool of myself."

Tara waved a careless hand. "You're among friends." They clinked gla.s.ses, drank, and talked some more. Ulick drank slowly, he didn't get drunk, but she sensed a definite relaxation about him that she hadn't seen before.

And as the night wore on, the silences between them grew. They weren't empty s.p.a.ces, bereft of words. Instead they were overflows of unspoken understanding.

He laid his hand on hers. Tara smiled, savoured its warmth. Ulick stared at the table, as if scared to face her. When he lifted his gaze, it held an edge of recklessness, as if he'd made up his mind: about what, she could only guess. Her heart answered the plea she saw in his eyes. They rose from their seats simultaneously, leaned over the small table.

There were no preliminaries, no tentative explorations. Ulick played his tongue over her lips and she opened for him willingly. He plunged it deep into her mouth with a shocking suddenness. A warm weakness spread from her belly through the muscles of her pelvis, into her upper thighs. Her nipples peaked into a pair of sensitive crowns under her bra.

Ulick steered her away from the table, drew her close to him. She gave her hands and fingers free rein to explore every plane and curve of his body as she had so longed to do, welcomed the sensation of his touch to her skin. As if he couldn't get her close enough, he put his hands under her b.u.t.tocks and lifted her from the floor to straddle his hips.

Oh, boy, did he want her badly. Her own desire flamed to fever pitch at the realization.

"Bedroom," she whispered as he spread his kisses down her neck. He walked her down the pa.s.sage without answering.

Later, when they lay entangled in the aftermath of the explosion between them, she placed her hand on his abdomen and asked the question that had been in the back of her mind since that first night.

"Ulick. Why, when I told you about my grandmother's death, did you say 'ah'?"

He chuckled. "What would ye have had me say?"

"There was meaning in that 'ah', Ulick. I heard it."

For a moment, she thought he'd fallen asleep. Then he pulled her closer, laid her head on his chest. His voice was a comforting rumble against her ear. "Why did ye choose to dig where ye found me? Was it chance, or did some matter guide yer decision?"

Tara hesitated. "Well . . . All my life, I've often felt this curious p.r.i.c.kly feeling along my spine when I meet certain people. It usually goes away after a minute or so." She felt silly for confessing this eccentricity, but the feeling was like chaff in the wind. This was a faerie she spoke to, after all. "When I arrived at the dig, I felt this p.r.i.c.kle all the time. Non-stop. It got really irritating after a while. The dig supervisor told me to choose my own square to excavate. I don't think he likes me very much."

Ulick stroked her hair. "Continue, please."

"I wandered around the edge of the dig and, because I felt miserable already, I chose the spot where the p.r.i.c.kly feeling was worst."

He sighed, shifted his body, but when she wanted to move away, worried she made him uncomfortable, he stopped her. "La.s.s, I do not know how to give ye this news gently. Ye are Fae, Tara."

She suppressed a laugh. "No, I'm not."

"Aye, ye are. We can sense the presence of another of our kind. Ye felt me there."

"No. It's not possible." Half of Tara wanted to roll off Ulick, go for a walk to process this strange claim of his. The other half wanted to snuggle closer to him, where she felt safe.

He moved his hand down to her back, stroked fingertips over her shoulder blades. "It is possible, sweet Tara. The feeling ye described, ye would have felt it when near yer own."

"But . . ."

"Most likely, yer grandma would have told ye of yer nature, had she lived. But if we die in the world of man, we can only resurrect if a stranger wakes us again. Our kin must walk away. The only other way is for the body to be taken to Tir na nog, where resurrection is an easier task. But to enter Tir na nog, ye have to be gifted with time magic. Not all are."

"So . . . you think I'm a faerie, like you?"

"Aye." He pulled the duvet up over them. "And, Tara . . ."

"Yes?"

"Moments before I was killed, I had implored Mother Eireann to lead me to one of my kind who had the gift of time magic."

Tara blinked. "So?"

Ulick didn't answer.

And then he didn't need to. She sat up beside him. "What? Me? Now I know you must be joking."

"Nay, la.s.s. I do not jest."

Tara laughed. Ulick put an arm behind his head, watched her with a quiet smile. "Ye set my soul on fire when you laugh like that."

Her giggle subsided. Ulick reached out and pulled her down on top of him. Tara felt blindly for the lamp switch. She found it. Velvet darkness poured into the room.

"So what do I do?"

They were on the couch in the sitting room, windblown from their walk. The smell of fresh heather and yesterday's rain clung to their skins, their hair. Three days had pa.s.sed since they became lovers, and their hunger for each other burned day and night.

"Let go of yer thoughts first." Ulick got up and drew the blinds to shut out the bright realness of the sun. "Close yer eyes, if ye must, but empty yer head. Then think of Tir na nog." He sat back down beside her.

"But surely the Tir na nog I'll think of will be the wrong one? It will be the image I've formed of it in my mind from the stories I've heard and read, not the place as it actually is."

"Tir na nog is in the heart of all Fae, Tara. Ye know it here." Ulick rested his hand on her chest. "Try." He shifted away from her and gave her an encouraging smile. "I think it might be easier for ye than ye think, because ye're a scholar. Yer mind is disciplined already."

She'd try, for his sake. In truth, she was still sceptical about his claims. Her? A faerie? Come on.

Yet at the same time, she couldn't just dismiss what he'd said. It made sense. Yes, she would try unlocking the time magic he was convinced she carried in her soul. She'd really try.

Tara closed her eyes and imagined herself sitting in an empty, white s.p.a.ce. Her breathing slowed. Every time a thought tried to muscle its way in from the outside, she focused harder on the white s.p.a.ce. Just white, nothing else.

When she felt empty and relaxed, Tara allowed a single name to join her in her s.p.a.ce. Tir na nog. Mythical land beyond time, home of the Irish G.o.ds.

Nothing happened. She shook her head regretfully, and opened her eyes. "I'm sorry, Ulick, I . . ."

The sentence died on her tongue. For a mere moment, she saw something like a hole in front of her, obliterating the furniture and wall behind it. Inside was a sense of absolute nothingness, as if everything stopped inside this darkness.

And then it was gone.

Tara turned to Ulick, her mouth opening and closing, but no sound coming from her throat. He grinned at her like a proud teacher. "I was right. Yer mind is disciplined already. Ye have strong time magic in ye, Tara. Ye opened a door to the s.p.a.ce between time and time, the pa.s.sage to Tir na nog."

"I . . . I . . ."

She felt it herself even as alertness sprang into his eyes and his lips pressed into a thin line. That familiar p.r.i.c.kle, a spider wearing football spikes crawling up her spine. A shadow pa.s.sed over the drawn blind.

Tap-tap-tap!

Tara rose automatically to open the door, but Ulick pulled her back. "We need to know who it is first. Remember, the knowledge I carry can yet harm those who work to undermine the King. They will be looking for me."

"More than 250 years on?"

"Aye. Ye do not understand, Tara, time means something different when you have eternity."

Her caller knocked again. "h.e.l.loooo! Tara? Are you home?"

"Oh." Tara smiled. "It's just Dr Dullaghan, the dig supervisor. My boss, actually." She turned to Ulick and the blood froze in her veins. He had turned deathly pale. His body adopted a deep, dangerous stillness in every line. Like a leopard, cornered, which turns itself into a statue to make full use of its camouflage, but at the same time tenses to fight.

"Tara," he said, his voice low, as Dullaghan knocked again. "The man ye think of as yer leader is not what he seems."

"Tara? h.e.l.lo? I know you're home, pet." The familiar Irish way of using endearments for all and sundry sounded wrong on Dullaghan's tongue. "Open the door, Tara."

"He is a powerful faerie, who works to gather enough power to kill Nuada Airgethlam and take his throne. Our King has learned over millennia to rule with wisdom and grace. War has been eradicated from Tir na nog, the land beyond time. The hidden world has always been treacherous, but for several hundred years now it has worn peace as its preferred outfit."

"Tara, I know you're in there. Open the door." Every patch of false friendliness Dullaghan had first plaited into his voice was now gone. He hammered at the door, making the knocker rattle.

"Taking away the man who keeps the balance, who knows the diplomacy to preserve this peace, will trigger wars that will reverberate in this land, and cost the lives of countless faerie." He glanced at her, a plea in his eyes. "I cannot let this happen. I must stand against him."

Ulick sprang to his feet and Tara followed suit. "Open an entrance into time for us, Tara," he said, his voice still low. He stepped in front of her, between her and the front door. "Do it. It's our only chance."

"Can't we-"

The end of her sentence was swallowed in a ma.s.sive crash. Her front door splintered into a thousand pieces. Tara flinched, braced herself for the shower of debris that would hit her, but nothing did.

Ulick had lifted his hands to chest level. The air in front of him seemed different, as if it was somehow separate from the rest of the air in the room. Debris bounced away in front of him as if from a shield.

As if he'd solidified the air.

Dullaghan strode into her ruined sitting room as if he owned the place. He rested contemptuous eyes on Ulick, sighed and clicked his tongue. "There you are. Do you have any idea how much trouble I've had to take to find you?"

"Aye. I guessed. Ye became a man of history, an excuse to dig where ye felt other Fae resting, looking for me."

Dullaghan clapped his hands slowly. "Bravo. Te n points for logic. And I would have found you sooner if Tara hadn't been there to muddle my senses. Now, I'll not ask if you want to go easy. I know the answer to that already. Never one for making things simple if they could be complicated, Ulick."

He wasn't even paying attention to her, as if she was completely inconsequential.

"Tara," said Ulick.

She snapped out of her shock, grasped his waist with shaking hands, rested her forehead against the hard muscles of his back. Comforting, yes, but how in h.e.l.l could anyone stand against someone who oozed menace and chill cruelty like Dullaghan did? How had he ever managed to hide the monster he truly was?

"Tara," Ulick said again, his voice low and calm, helping her focus.

Dullaghan misunderstood. "Oh. Tara? We can negotiate there. I am willing to give you my word to let her go, if you will give yours in return to yield to me without making things difficult."

"Nay. I will promise no such thing."

Focus, focus, focus, but how could she call into mind the empty white s.p.a.ce when her brain screamed with fear?

"Then she will die with you," Dullaghan said. Tara didn't look, just heard the creak and crash from above. She felt a whoomp around her, her ears blocked, and she heard Ulick grunt. She had to risk a glimpse.

There was little to see. There was empty s.p.a.ce around them, but if she reached out, she could touch a ma.s.s of broken timber, pieces of ceiling, shards of gla.s.s and lumps of brick wall. Light filtered through the ma.s.s, but faded fast. Dullaghan was breaking the house up around them, piling all the debris on their heads.

Ulick groaned. "Any day now, la.s.s," he said, teeth clenched. He was holding a pocket of air rigid around them. Tara watched his arms start to shake, the light disappearing.

They were going to be crushed. She had to find a way to make that entrance. Silence. Emptiness. White s.p.a.ce. Please, white s.p.a.ce, come on!

Something flashed in her mind, a memory of the emptiness she'd seen briefly in the hole she'd called with her mind. Not quite emptiness, though. Empty, but very, very full. Tara grabbed Ulick around the waist. His air-shield crumbled, and tons of debris tumbled down into the s.p.a.ce where, moments before, they had stood.

"Wonderful." He kissed her. "Wonderful." Another kiss. "Clever woman." Three more kisses accentuated his words, then the playful elation at their narrow escape turned serious. His kisses deepened, her arms wound tighter around him.

Ulick lifted her from the ground and twirled her around, laughing. "Thanks be to mother Eireann, I found ye. She is nothing if not complicated, our wee island's soul. Why just take me to a wielder of time magic, if she could find my soulmate at the same time?"

Had he said soulmate? But Tara was too overwhelmed to savour the term. Right now, she wanted to take in the sea of forest around her, the blue-green giant pine trees that undulated to a rim of mountains in the very far distance. Snow lay heavy on the boughs, twinkled in what looked like early morning sun. They stood on the round top of a hill that alone bore no trees, only gra.s.s on its gently sloping flanks. Tara thanked her lucky stars that she still wore hiking boots with thick socks.

Ulick turned and scanned the world around them. He gasped, then started laughing.

"What?" Tara asked.

"Do ye see those footprints, la.s.s?"

She couldn't exactly miss them. A lone line in the virgin snow, they snaked up the side of the hill and ended abruptly a few steps from where they stood. Another line of prints seemed less churned, the snow less disturbed.

"Those are my footprints," Ulick said.

"What?"

"I ran here before I left Tir na nog. I was very tired by then. And I know it was me, because in that tree yon, I left my lunch. See? The red sack. I was walking in the woods when I overheard the man ye call Dullaghan meeting with another. A servant in the King's castle. The man I met in Warrington had discovered their plot, though he knew not who was involved. I turned and ran for the gate to Tir na nog."

Tara frowned. "Not for the King?"

He shook his head. "They were between me and the castle, and I felt power roll off this enemy in waves. I would not have stayed alive much longer, had I tried to reach the King. Instead I aimed to reach the one who knew of their doings. Each of us knew half of their plan: he the details but not the mastermind, myself the names but not the plan. I thought if both of us knew all, we stood a better chance of getting word to King Nuada."

"You mean to tell me that here, it's no more than hours since you left? Yet you lived through more than 250 years while you were gone?"

Ulick grabbed her hand. "Aye. And in the here and now I must make all speed to the castle."

Tara glanced over her shoulder as she hurried after him, fear clutching her throat. "What about Dullaghan? Won't he just step through that empty place to Tir na nog right after us?"

"He will indeed. And there the Lord of Time will let him through into Tir na nog when he feels it is best."

"When is he likely to feel it is best?" Tara let go of Ulick's hand to run better. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the lunch bag from the tree as they pa.s.sed, and settled into an easy trot. He grabbed Tara's wrist to slow her down. "It's a long way to go, la.s.s. Pace yerself." He remembered her question. "The G.o.d of time is a good friend of the King. I judge he will feel it is best for the enemy to step into this land with not enough time for him to catch us, but enough time to tempt him into trying."

"And then?" A st.i.tch grew in Tara's side, but at this pace, she felt she could go on for hours.

"And then prepared men will meet the man ye call Dullaghan, with his fiendish accomplice trussed and ready for judgment. Not men caught unawares, with a cancer in their midst they do not know of."