Celtic Evil: A Fitzgerald Brother Novel: Roarke (4 page)

“Alright, we don’t really want to try this
crap on me.” He spoke clearly and firmly, all the arrogance he felt
coming out in the tone as his eyes shifted around him.

“You always were impatient
weren’t you, luv?” the soft musically lilted tone from the edge of
the dark parking lot nearly brought the strong, stubborn man to his
knees. “Always knew what you wanted and went for it.”

Ryan’s breath had caught in
his throat as the voice finally stepped into the mild light offered
by the bright moonlight. “Annie,” he breathed, his natural accent
coming back on instinct.

Facing him was a lovely
girl with pale skin and nearly white blond hair that hung down to
her narrow waist. Dressed in a pale blue dress with a flowered
apron, she smiled serenely at Ryan.

“Can ye recall all the
dreams we had, Ry?” she asked, stopping a few feet from him as her
soft tone took on sadness. “All the promises you made to me about
the future? How we’d wed and leave Clare behind us.”

His heart still beating
wildly in his chest, Ryan’s eyes had looked away from the pale blue
eyes facing him. “Aye, I do,” he whispered, fighting both the pain
in his heart and the sudden pain in his head.

“You said you loved me and
would love me until we died.” Anastasia Cleary spoke sadly, voice
hollow. “If you meant it why did you lie to me? Why didn’t we die
together?”

“Just overplayed it, mate.”
Ryan’s smoky eyes started to grow darker as he lifted his head, the
muscles in his strong jaw tight. “You had it right until you played
that card ‘cause Annie never doubted my love for her and knew
bloody well if I could have saved her I would have. Now get the
hell out of my sight!”

His temper had always been
a bad thing and Ryan knew it but he wanted the image away but
before he could cast the spell in his mind, an invisible fist
slammed into his stomach and knocked him down hard.

“Yeah, that’s right. Can’t
use a girl as a weapon, so go for the magic fist?” he sneered, not
positive what he was facing and not caring even as he could hear
other things in his head.

Another hard blow took his
breath and he felt his vision blur and his nose bleed as the power
sought to hurt until his temper finally got his feet under him
again.

His hand shot out to send a
wave of electric energy from his fingers in a burst like the ones
he hadn’t had to use in years.

“Yeah, that was
productive,” he chastised himself sourly, trying to get to his feet
but feeling too weak.

“You do have your father’s temper don’t you,
Ryan Shawn Alaister Fitzgerald?”

Giving up trying to stand, Ryan just slumped
back against a pole to see who was speaking and sneered again at
the silver haired well-dressed man.

“So I’ve been told by many
a person,” he replied, shifting a look, and he wasn’t surprised to
see that the parking lot was still. “So, is this happening in real
time or my mind?”

Pleased by the boy’s
alertness, Sebastian smiled. “Let us say that none of the mortals
wasting their lives inside will know of these events.

“Do you know who I am, Ryan?” he asked
curiously.

The migraine was building so he had a bad
hunch he did know but he’d never been one to show his hand that
easily.

“Well, it’s too early to be
the Easter Bunny.” He saw the man’s eyes flash in annoyance as he
grinned through the growing pain. “So I’m guessing a man of your
age, the silver hair, and the well-bred voice could only be Mrs.
Santa Claus.”

Sebastian’s eyes flashed
red but before he could react, Ryan showed he wasn’t quite as
defeated as had been thought as a light shove sent the older
warlock back a step.

“You may have gained
Toryn’s temper but you inherited Brenna’s caustic wit, I see,” he
nodded, almost pleased by the defiance. “You loved this girl once,
didn’t you?”

“You picked a bad subject,”
Ryan warned lowly, refusing to remember how much he had loved Annie
and how much it had hurt him when someone had killed her while
after him.

“You have much of your
father in you, Ryan. Toryn and I were bitter rivals but I respect
the way you’ve handled yourself here.” Sebastian watched the boy
closely to see he had his attention. “I offered your father a
choice long ago. A choice that had he accepted your family wouldn’t
have been torn asunder like it has been.”

That caused Ryan to look
closer and he missed the warlock’s look. “I can offer you the same
choice and by accepting I can give you back your lost love,”
Sebastian motioned to the now still image of Annie Cleary. “She
died in your arms didn’t she? It was after some self-styled boy who
fancied himself a witch attempted an attack on your life. I can
return her to you, whole and like she was.”

The night sky had darkened and the calm
winds had suddenly began blowing harder but Ryan was only hearing
that the only woman in his life that he’d let himself love could be
his again.

However, as much as that
appealed to him, Ryan had been a gambler since he’d been thirteen
years old and knew that such an appealing offer always had a
catch.

“What’s the offer?” he
asked casually, feeling the weight on the Trinity medal he wore
actually heat against his skin.

Confident of his win,
Sebastian smiled easily. “Just join my cause, Ryan Fitzgerald,” he
held up a smooth hand to help his would-be apprentice to his feet.
“Accept the offer your father so stupidly spurned that day on the
island when he could have saved your mother and his self by letting
fate have its day and all that you wish can be yours.”

Looking fully at the figure
of his almost fiancée for a long time, it took a couple minutes for
those last words to break through and he looked up.

“So all Da would have had to do was let the
brat die that day and he and Mum would have lived and…”

“And your family would
still be together,” Sebastian nodded. “You were never told of the
awful curse brought on your family the day your brother was born
and it would have been lifted if your father would have listened to
me and not the woman.”

Staring at the hand offered him, Ryan slowly
accepted it but even as the ancient wizard’s fingers closed on his,
his eyes went to slits and he tightened his grip.

“The only curse my family had was at times
having these powers and the only one who gets to call my baby
brother a curse is me.” He gritted, knowing he didn’t have the
power to defeat the man responsible for his parents’ death but
could sure shake him up.

“My father and mother died
to save their son and maybe you thought you could reason to my own
fears and weaknesses, the one thing you don’t do is mock the real
reason my Da gave his life,” Ryan’s eyes flashed and shoved
Sebastian away in shock. “My father gave his life to protect his
wife and son and he kept you at bay for fifteen bleedin’ years so
why don’t you go back to hell!”

Sebastian’s eyes blazed red
as his anger took hold, not believing he had lost this round to
this mortal witch. “Fool!” he screamed, throwing a hand out to lash
out, and blasted Ryan off his feet and hard to the concrete. “You
could have had it all and spared yourself!

“You were born of the five.
Five into one, one to become five but it only takes one weak one to
fall to break the circle,” he sneered as he opened the portal to
leave. “You’ve refused my offer boy, but the weakest one will fall
as secrets have yet to be revealed and I know how much guilt he
still harbors for the breaking of your family.”

As the wizard disappeared and things began
moving in real time again, Ryan was finally able to push himself
back up to his feet from that last blast that he was sure gave him
a few cracked ribs.

“Damn.” He gritted, lifting
his shirt to see the singe marks and bruises then sat against his
car hood to consider the last words.

Not always considered the
brightest of the five sons Toryn Fitzgerald and his wife brought
into this world, Ryan was smarter than he let on and right then he
knew it didn’t take an Einstein to figure out what the ancient
witch had been muttering about.

“Roarke. He means the
brat.” He whispered, slamming a fist on his hood as he thought
about his younger brother and knowing that it had been Roarke his
parents had died to save that day and apparently it was time to
face it again.

“That’s just bloody great,”
he muttered, easing his aching body into the car and keying his
cell to call one of his operators.

Hearing the blare of loud
music, Ryan literally winced. “Olav, turn that bloody crap off!” he
snapped, letting the bright red Lamborghini roar to life and
squealed from the lot.

“What’s up, boss?” the big
blond Swede asked after turning his music down. “Want the
schedule?”

Considering things, Ryan
sighed and made a choice that, for once in years, wasn’t based on
himself. “No, family stuff’s come up. Tell Andi she’ll have to
handle the upgrade to the Baron’s place and all of the coming stuff
until I get back in touch with you.”

Surprise was clear as Olav
Vanhoove, one of the security agents who worked with Ryan, took
this in and knew that rarely did his boss ditch jobs. “You need
help?”

“Not unless you know a
bloody good demon hunter.” Ryan laughed, and then turned serious.
“If I do, I’ll call; and mate?” he paused to remind the man. “Tell
Andi not to slap anyone this time.”

His friend was laughing as
he hung up but Ryan could not get rid of the dull pain in his head,
swearing under his breath. “Damn it all to hell! That brat better
be worth this.”

The French Quarter, New Orleans,
Louisiana:

Legends about New Orleans,
Louisiana, and the French Quarter have abounded since the city
first came into creation. Tales of ghosts walking the streets, and
roaming the halls of the historic and colorful homes were also
plentiful as well as other undead creatures.

Many put the stories off to
legend or just colorful tales to please the flocks of tourists. One
visitor wasn’t sure how true the stories were but considering some
of the things he’d seen and done, a few ghosts didn’t bother him.
So long as they weren’t his own.

Relaxing on a bed in one of
the French Quarter’s more colorful townhouses, Roarke Fitzgerald
felt at ease. Something he hardly ever was on any given
day.

At twenty-six years of age,
he’d been many things so far in his life. The more colorful
included a singer, a spy, a security engineer, and his current
favorite hobby, ghost buster.

Tall at 6’2” with a slender
athletic build and long legs that carries his natural agility well,
he wore his jet-black hair long as it often passed his shoulders,
or pulled away from eyes that were often a smoky grayish blue
color.

Right then those eyes had
drifted closed as he lay under an antique white lace canopy that
matched the quilt on top of which he had stretched his lean frame.
Roarke kept his eyes closed as he let his other senses roam the
room, but smiled as he centered on the other occupant in the
room

Roarke had come to the Big
Easy to visit friends and do some casual tourist things for once.
That had included earlier that day, helping a small boy just
learning to play guitar for street money, a few chords.

“That little boy will
probably be talking about you for weeks,” the soft British accent
spoke from the side of the bedroom where a mirrored vanity was
located. “If not him then at least his older sister will
be.”

That thinly veiled comment
made his smile grow slightly since he knew what the opposite sex
saw in him. He’d been told for awhile he had an elegant face with
an English nose and high cheekbones. He often wished he were
plainer looking.

However, right then the
attention caused him to grin since he knew it made his friend more
than a little jealous. “She was sixteen or younger,
a stor
(‘My Dear’). She
was a little too young for me.”

Without even looking, he
knew the young woman sitting at the vanity was rolling her blue
eyes at him. “Jealous?”

“There a reason to be,
Romeo?” Jessica Hadley countered with a laugh as she continued to
brush her long auburn hair but was pleased to hear Roarke’s
laughter.

Her friend had been quiet for a long while
and his voice had lacked its usual soothing or musical lilt that
came from his Irish accent, and that worried her.

“No, never any reason to
worry about that.” He replied, finally opening his eyes to watch
his twenty-six year old friend.

A British girl with natural pale skin and
soft blue eyes that tended to change with emotion, Jessica shared
many of his own interests so they’d bonded quickly when they’d been
kids.

She owned an international
company that did quite well but unknown to many others was her work
in the anti-terrorist field. It was a job for the United States DEA
agency that had brought her and her main subsidiary team to New
Orleans and after it was over, they’d asked Roarke to spend some
time.

He had known without
Cameron telling him that the main reason he’d asked him down was
that Jessie was hurt and something else was wrong. That was
something else they shared.