affinity for the dead was all well and fine, except when I was in a cemetery. I could almost feel the pressure of a soul pushing out from the tomb.
“Not tonight,” I said, turning away, and looked down the steps that curled around into darkness as if leading down to the fiery pits of hell. My imagination was getting ahead of me. “Eammon?”
“Yeah, I be here.” His thickly accented voice rolled up out of the darkness, and he appeared in the shadows of the steps moments later, blinking up at me.
Being a leprechaun, he almost always had to look up at me.
“Eammon, I need to talk to you.”
“What, suddenly you want the Hollows’ help?” His eyebrows shot up. “I thought you be too good for us now.”
He puffed past me, swinging his arms a little more than he had to, and smacked me in the process.
“Where is everyone?” I blurted. Suzy had come with me when I’d left the Hollows, but there had been three other recruits. I didn’t see hide nor hair of them, or of the other two mentors, Tom and Louis.
“Gone. They buggered off after you and Suzy left. Luke hangs around a bit answering the phone, mostly hoping to get with Sarge. He’s too jumpy to be of any use except doing office work.” I glanced back at the car where the others had chosen to wait (okay, I’d asked them to wait), and Sarge shrugged his wolfy shoulders in the back seat. Of course, he could hear us with those gigantic ears of his.
I led Eammon farther out into the cemetery, wanting to get some privacy for this conversation, and not even really knowing why. I trusted my friends.
Didn’t I?
“The human police tried to string me up for a murder charge, and not after a fair trial or anything. As in the trial’s tomorrow, and my execution will immediately follow it. I think someone in the shadow world paid them to get rid of me. Shit, I’m sure of it.”
He stumbled and shook his head, muttering something under his breath I didn’t understand.
“What?”
“It’s just . . . trouble comes for those who stand between us and the dark. Your gran . . . your mum.” He looked up at me and grasped my hand between his callused, dry palms. “Celia made me promise not to tell you what you were born to be, what she trained you to be, and breaking a promise to her is not healthy for any man. Even if she is a ghost.”
He adjusted his stance as if his pants were suddenly too tight, and I grinned. “She cursed you?”
“Something like that. She said she knew you’d be coming home soon and if she weren’t around, she wanted me to look out for you as long as I could.” He sighed. “Didn’t last long, did I?”
I put my other hand over his and took a knee so I wasn’t looking down at him. “Eammon, is there anything at all that you can tell me? Like who might want to off me?” I held my tongue about the whole suspecting the council business. I didn’t want to sway him.
He closed his eyes and shook his head, then opened them again. “The O’Seans were tied to a good many people, and none that be the good kind. You’ve upset the world of Faerie by pissing off Karissa, and the council isn’t sure what to make of you. Until you brought it to their attention, they had no idea Davin had gone bad, or that he’d been working with that ding-dong Derek. And while you’d think they’d be grateful, you made them look like fools even if you didn’t be meaning to.” Again he shook his head. “You’ve basically irritated every faction of the shadow world, Breena O’Rylee. What do you want, a damn medal?”
His sharp tone didn’t fool me—I heard the pride in there as if he’d trained me all by himself. Gran was the one who’d done most of my training, but he’d shown me the path back to what I’d been born to do. Apparently born to do.
Speaking of which. Now that I was out of jail, and my life wasn’t currently on the line, I had a job to do.
“I’m going to find my gran, Eammon. Someone took her spirit. Someone powerful, and . . . maybe someone who would know I’d come looking for her.”
Could that be the reason I’d been framed?
He grimaced. “Possibly, but more likely it’s Celia