The storms swept north of Ballytone, bending underbrush flat and raking the coarse grass with hail. Liam Mallory looked at the heavens and drew a cross in the air with his gnarled hand, a token of gratitude for this turbulent weather. He had prayed to the gods for it and they had answered him surely.
He was traveling in the county of Mayo with his wife, Corinne, in a four-wheeled pony trap down a rutted road toward the village of Ballytone. He clucked softly to the stout trotting pony who had begun to shy at the cracks of lightning and the thunder rolling down the hillsides.
“The child is in mortal peril,” Liam said to his wife, who huddled close to him. “I must stop and pray to the gods for her.”
“Why speak of gods? There is only one God, Liam,” Corinne Mallory said, and tightened her grip on the wooden rosary looped around her waist.
“Whichever god answers me is the god I’m praying to, woman.”
“But there are miles between us and the poor one.”
“Aye, I know that well. But the face of evil is clear in my mind, clear enough to thwart, if my gods will it.”
She knew he wanted only her silence now. “Aye,” she said and watched with resigned eyes as he reined the pony to a stop, climbed from the trap, and stamped across the mud-slick road, his tall, dark frame merging and disappearing into a grove of black aspens.
Liam Mallory knelt and struck the bole of a tree with his thorn-stick and turned his face to the torn skies, a man eight decades and five years beyond the warmth of the cradle hewn by his great-grandfather. The ancient Irishman knelt in the storming weather and prayed to his gods to succor and preserve an innocent child in mortal danger that night.
His prayers were long because his gods were many. A powerful tenet of his myriad faiths held that good and evil, light and darkness, forever waged an equal battle for the souls of man, a conflict undecided until that human prize expired and its soul went to the victor’s domicile — the darkness of hell or the lights of heaven.
And to fight and triumph against that always menacing darkness, a man needed all the gods he could summon. The one created in candlelight, incense, and the priest’s chalice at consecration — old Liam prayed first to that God, the dignified Lord who lived behind the Tabernacle’s golden doors in all the churches and cathedrals of Ireland. And he prayed to that God’s mother, and to all His saints.
But while praying to the traditional Deity and His company, old Liam also pleaded with older gods, the terrible and primitive minions and familiars of all the gods of life — the zephyrs and cooling winds, the raging fires, and clear, still waters, and he begged help and vengeance from other servants of light, the wise and holy Druids who permeated and protected all the valleys and forests of this great green island.
“Never for me, Hyperion and Caveran. Never for us, the Brothers of the Red Branch. It is not that I seek help for ourselves, for such as us have been blessed with your strength—”
His old woman called to him from the cart, her voice wavering in the winds. “Come, Liam. Your endurance is not endless.” She knew better than most the ordeal her husband was undergoing, knew that the powers he asked for taxed his human strength.
“Quiet, woman,” Liam cried and pounded his staff on the ground. “The girl and I,O Brothers, need your help, draw on your strength as a shield and rod against the evil that threatens her.”
The old man’s rugged face was coated by a flare of lightning, his next words lost in a drumbeat of thunder. “...her needs now, O Brothers, and the powers that I transfer to her...”
And with the next roll of thunder, the old man felt a surge of rushing energy within him and, knowing from whence it came, smiled in strained triumph and began a litany of prayers for Jessica Mallory.
When he gasped out the last of these entreaties, Mallory pointed his thorn-stick at the heavens, swinging it toward the jagged lightning above the far-distant mass of land called Skyhead.
He held that pose until his arm trembled with fatigue, then he cursed the evil threatening the girl, and called out her name, his voice ringing above the crash of the elements. Then he shuddered convulsively and fell forward, his body crashing like a tree to the floor of the forest.
Later, Corinne Mallory helped her husband to his feet and guided him back to the pony-trap. Taking the reins in her own hands, her husband’s head resting on her shoulder, she set the pony trotting once again along the road to Ballytone.
Chapter Twenty-Six
When the pain struck her shoulder, Maud Griffith was walking along the corridor to Jessica’s bedroom. The ornate gold candelabrum she carried sent leaping lights and shadows in front of her, the reflections glowing on the chinoiserie wallpapers and rich carpets.
The electrical storm had knocked out the power at Easter Hill only minutes before. Benny had tried to activate a generator in the cellar but reported that the auxiliary power source had also been shorted by the lightning marching brilliantly from Skyhead down to Easter Hill and on toward Ballytone.
As the needlepoint of pain pierced the flesh below her collarbone, Maud gasped involuntarily. Her straining nerves were dangerously close to the breaking point. Her high heel caught on a fringe of carpet and she lost her balance, stumbling against the wall. The impact caused a spray of hot, beaded candlewax to fall across the backs of her hands. She cursed softly but violently, a mindless fear in her voice.
Placing the candelabrum on a hall table, Maud brushed the hardening wax from her hands, trying to fight back a rising panic. She felt close to tears, frightened by the surrounding darkness and the feeling that came with pain — a terror brought on by her body’s weakness. The smothering blackness in the old house caused the memory of her dreadful dreams to resurface, the cage of musty garments, the sound of her pleading screams, the suffocating fear of impending death.
That presence seemed closer to her now than ever before, persistent and attendant, a spectral finger touching her shoulder with a streak of pain.
There would be no sympathy from Eric. He was furious enough without the burden of her concerns.
Picking up the candles, she walked on to Jessica’s room and unlocked the door. “Come with me, dear,” she said, raising the candles to illuminate the room.
Jessica turned from the windows and looked steadily at her aunt, her eyes gleaming with opaque fire. “Do you think it’s wise to give me orders?”
“Please, Jessica.” Maud was suddenly alarmed by the intensity in the girl’s expression. But this was nonsense, she thought. She was just a child. How could she harm them?... Maud forced herself to meet Jessica’s stare directly. “It’s your Uncle Eric. He wants to talk to you. Do come along.”
“Yes, and I want to talk to him,” Jessica said.
They walked to the head of the stairs, Maud holding the candelabrum in one hand, the other firmly on Jessica’s arm.
Lighted candles stood in holders in the great hall. The yellow flickering illumination fell in shadowed beams into the open doors of the dining room and library.
Maud ushered Jessica into the library. Eric stood at the fireplace, a strange and disturbing smile on his lips.
Jessica’s heart lurched when she saw the crumpled figure on the hearthstone, Kevin O’Dell, his face battered and swollen, a trickle of blood running from his parted lips. Kevin’s eyes were closed and she could hear his labored breathing above the crackle of the logs.
Eric said pleasantly, “Your conspirator doesn’t look quite so formidable now, does he, my dear?”
With easy strength, Jessica pulled herself from Maud and ran to Kevin’s side, kneeling and taking his bruised head in her lap.
“It seems he had a little accident, Jessica,” Eric’s voice sounded strangely muted and distant to her, as if he were speaking from the far end of a tunnel. “Took a nasty fall climbing down from the roof.”