Never Never (17 page)

M
ike sat
his horse and felt the cold invade his heavy wool coat until it reached his bones. It had been five days since he'd exiled Shaun and Saoirse Morrison. During that time, he and the other men had settled the pair in an abandoned cottage and stocked them with fresh game. Someone—usually Gavin or Tommy—dropped by at least once a day to deliver fresh bread and check on them.

Some exile.

Except for the lack of security, Mike thought the pair had a pretty decent set up.

Five days, he thought to himself, since the two left and the tension in the castle had significantly lessened. Even Shaun's own mother was happier than Mike had seen her.

The woman Ava—whom Mike suspected was Shaun's common law wife—said she had never seen Beryl as happy as when she was talking with Gavin and Tommy about her beloved castle or giving them tours of the place.

Five days since they'd discovered the garage behind the gift shop break room—complete with nonfunctioning microwave ovens and a refrigerator but also two pre-1985 tractors Mike was sure would operate once they'd fetched petrol from the old compound.

Five days since they'd found another room crammed to the ceiling with an inventory of antique cross bows and assorted implements of torture.

Five days since Sarah had said more than a few words to him.

No matter how he tried to tell her that Shaun and Saoirse were happier where they were—that the whole castle was happier with them where they were—she only saw Mike as a tyrannical bastard determined to have his own way.

Deciding to give up his search for game for today, he turned his horse back toward the castle. Normally he would let the lads do all the hunting but he had needed to be out of the castle this morning. He needed the exercise and the fresh air. For a castle as big as Herndon was, it was surprisingly small quarters when you shared it with a woman who hated your guts.

Was he wrong to have thrown them out?
Is it true I'm not able to see any way but me own
? Was Sarah right that he had let his temper make the decision before his reason had had a chance to catch up? And if it was true, could he reverse it now?
Ride over to Shaun's and tell him all is forgiven, he can come back inside?

Mike shivered and loosened the reins. The horse knew his way back to the castle stables and the warm mash that would be waiting for him there.

F
iona stood
next to Declan where he sat on the stone bench in the interior castle courtyard. She would have loved to have taken him to the front catwalk but he wasn't ready for climbing yet. He wasn't even ready for stairs yet.

“How do ye feel?” she asked.

“For the millionth time,” he responded with a fond smile, “I'm grand.”

She'd tucked a wool rug over his knees and while she knew he appreciated the warmth, she also knew he was aware of how much of an invalid it made him look.

Call a spade…

It was a cold day but with no sign of rain or snow and every reason to believe the sun might shine for a few minutes though the clouds. Fiona hated that Declan had to be cooped up in that clinic. His wound had healed with no infection, thanks to Sarah's antibiotics, but he wasn't getting stronger.

They were all at the limit of their medical knowledge. For whatever reason, his recovery had stalled.

Catriona and Hannah, two women who had been in the rape camp with Fiona, emerged from the large stone archway opposite the courtyard. Both carried long bows in their arms and quivers full of arrows on their backs.

Fiona waved to them as they went to the lawn of the castle interior. Mike had set up targets there for them.

“They look like warrior princesses,” Declan said softly.

Fiona turned to look at him. “Aye, they do,” she said. “Mike asked for volunteers for short bows and nearly all the women volunteered.”

“Odd, that,” he said as if to himself.

Fiona watched him and wondered what belabored reasoning was going on behind that face. He struggled so much with the simplest mental actions these days. And even more now that his body had betrayed him as well.

“It's a blessing,” she said. “Because we need the lads for work the women can't do like blacksmithing and plumbing.”

Declan turned to look at her, his face impassive.

“We're having to redo the toilets,” Fiona explained. “It's a lot of digging.” She laughed. “When given the choice between digging a new dunny or learning to shoot a bow and arrow, every woman in the castle reached for a bow.” She laughed again but Declan just watched her blankly.

He's never coming back to me
, she thought.
That's the truth of it. Ciara will never know her real da and I'll never see but glimpses of the man I fell in love with.

She reached over and took his hand. It was cold. She blinked back fierce tears. She still had him alive in front of her. She had his handsome face and the firm comfort of his touch. And that was something.

A sound from the gate tower made both her and Declan look in that direction. They'd only been in the castle less than a week but already there were defensive systems in place. She watched as Kevin waved to someone outside the castle—most likely Mike—and then give the signal to Terry who, along with his wife Jill, manipulated the pulleys to lift the portcullis and lower the drawbridge.

Fiona always found this moment chilling. After all, they were only truly vulnerable at the moment when the door was open and anyone and anything could get in. She found herself holding her breath until Mike trotted his horse through the gate and Terry labored to raise the drawbridge again.

“Impressive,” Declan murmured.

She looked at him with surprise to see he was watching the whole procedure.

“Mike is having the lads add sharpened stakes to the moat,” she said. “In addition to getting the moat filled up again. There'll be no one can get to us then.”

“Not like before,” Declan said with eyes glazed and fixed on some unseen point on the horizon.

“No,” Fiona said, her voice choking on the tears she refused to let fall. “Never again like before.”

T
he sight
of the convent emerged from the profusion of vines and tree branches like a hidden Shangri-La. Even from the interior of the woods, Hurley could see the flat grey stone peeking out with the late afternoon sun illuminating its surface with gold and red.

If he were a religious man, he'd have to say it was a transformative moment.

But he wasn't.

Or a patient one.

The minute Hurley knew they were really on the right path, he put his horse into a trot in the tight confines of the woodland path and pushed to the head of the column. The path was just wide enough for one man on horseback or a steady single file line of one hundred armed men.

He was the first to see it as he burst out of the woods and into the clearing. In front of the medieval stone nunnery, two figures dressed in black looked up from where they worked in the garden.

Hurley tamped down the desire to laugh out loud with pure joy. He took a long controlling breath to steady his mounting exultation, then raised his rifle and shot both women where they stood.

I
t wasn't
possible to believe.

Of every conceivable scenario that Hurley had run through his mind in the days it took to travel to the convent—and there had been hundreds, from being given false information from the captive to taking twice as long to find the convent—it had never once occurred to him that he would arrive and
Donovan wouldn't be there
.

He clenched his jaw and stood in the small convent chapel and stared through the plain glass window to the garden area outside.

His men were bivouacked in the garden and frontcourt where they were trampling and uprooting plants in order to pound in tent stakes. As Hurley stared out the window, he watched the sun drop away outside like a blood red ball drenching the sky with gore before snuffing itself out. It was quiet outside, which surprised him. He'd made it clear to Brady that the men had the run of the place—and that included rape of the conquered.

Perversely, the men appeared to be in the process of building cook fires and settling in for the night.

True, the women were all old but Hurley hadn't thought that would be an issue. They were human, after all.

Clearly the Centurions were reacting to the fact that these women were nuns, Hurley thought as he snorted in impatience.
Good Irish lads, Roman Catholic, most of them if anything at all
. And even if they'd had no religious upbringing at all—more likely—they'd all seen enough movies to get the idea that nuns were sacred.

How can you believe that if you don't believe in God?

Clearly, he didn't know his men as well as he thought he did. Instead of angering him, which was his initial reaction, Hurley decided to be grateful for the opportunity that revealed the fact to him.

Because now he could deal with it.

The slaying of the two nuns in the garden should have sufficed to inform the head nun that he must be dealt with seriously. His dossier of intent, he thought with a smile.

She sat now, her back board-straight in the front row of the pew facing the altar. She wasn't unattractive and not all that old but Hurley felt no desire to take her.

“Where is Donovan?” he asked for the third time, not bothering to remove his gaze from the quiet activity outside the chapel window.

“I will not tell you.” She spoke calmly. Her tone enraged him.
How can she not be quaking in her chair? Does she think she's untouchable? The bodies of two of her black crows lie in full view from this window!

He looked at her and felt the fury build in his chest.

“Camp Prefect!” he called out. The chapel door swung open and Brady stuck his head in the room, his eyes going first to the nun before looking at his commander.

“Yes Commander.”

“Bring in the first one.” He glanced at the head nun and had the satisfaction of seeing her tense.

A plump elderly nun was pushed through the door. Brady stood behind her, his hand on her elbow. Hurley saw the women's necklace prominently on her full bosom—a wooden cross that she clutched with one hand.

“What is your name?” Hurley asked pleasantly. Unlike his own lieutenant, the woman did not look at the head nun before answering. Hurley snorted in disgust. It seemed she was intent on demonstrating that she answered to a higher authority.

“My name is Sister Ambrose,” she said, her voice low but wavering. She was nervous. She was afraid.

“Tell me, Sister Ambrose, where is the man Donovan?” Hurley asked.

“I do not know.”

Hurley stood up and watched both nuns stiffen at the same time.

As well they might.

He walked to where Sister Ambrose stood and turned and smiled at the head nun…

…before driving his fist into Sister Ambrose's stomach.

The nun gasped and bent over, holding her belly but Hurley grabbed her headpiece to jerk her face up. It came off in his hand, revealing a gray haired matron.

“Hold her!” he barked at Brady. The Prefect came up behind the sister and pinned her arms back.

Hurley looked at the head nun. Her eyes bulged wide with fear and horror.

“Someone needs to tell me where Donovan is,” he said to her. Before she could speak, he smashed his fist into Sister Ambrose's face. He saw the head nun jump to her feet and he bellowed, “Sit back down!”

She hesitated, her eyes not on him but on the woman sagging in Brady's hands.

Hurley pulled out his handgun and held it to the head of the moaning, barely conscious woman in Brady's arms.

Before he could ask the head nun again, a sound of crashing wood came from the hallway behind Brady. The door swung open and a man filled the entranceway, his eyes going to Hurley and his gun and then to the head nun.

“Who the feck are you?” Hurley snarled.

“Mac, no!” the head nun said.

“
Mac
, is it?” Hurley said correcting his aim to the head nun. “So you're the one Donovan spared before he hung my brother. Is that right?”

The man in the doorway stepped into the room and Hurley pulled back the hammer on the gun he was aiming at the head nun.

“Not another step,” Hurley said. “Or I kill her. Brady, bring Chezzie in here.”

Brady dropped the nun he was holding and exited the room.

“Do you know who I am?” Hurley asked Mac.

“I don't give a shite,” Mac said, his eyes on the head nun. “What do you want with us?”

“I want to know why Michael Donovan let you live. I want to know why he murdered my brother. I want to know where Donovan is right now.”

“Feck you.”

He noticed a silent communication between the man and the nun and felt a wave of fury race through him.
The bastard was asking her something and the head bitch was answering!

The door swung open wider and the cretin Chezzie was ushered into the room.

“I'm…I'm sorry, Mother,” Chezzie blurted out immediately. “I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry.” He began to weep.

“Shirrup!” Hurley barked. He was tempted to just shoot the wanker where he stood. “Answer me! Is this the one who was shown mercy while my brother was not?”

“Your brother was a murdering rapist,” Mac said. “He didn't deserve the dignity of the trial he got.”

“Shut up!” Hurley screamed, now pointing his gun at Mac.

“I'm sorry, Mac,” Chezzie sobbed. “I didn't know what else to do.”

“We forgive you, Chezzie,” the head nun said. “This is not your fault.”

Screaming in rage, Hurley turned his gun on Chezzie. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” he screamed, shooting Chezzie four times in the chest. The man's body jerked as each round hit. The head nun screamed.

Hurley turned the gun on her but addressed Mac, “Tell me where the feck Donovan is or I swear—”

Mac lunged across the room at him. He grabbed Hurley by the shoulders just as Hurley jammed the gun barrel into the man's stomach.

“Mac, no!” the head nun said.

Hurley pulled the trigger and felt the roar of the shot reverberate throughout his own body.

The nun ran to them still locked together and put her hands on Mac's arm as if to lead him away. But there would be no leading now.

Mac slumped to his knees, his head lolling to the side, dead before he hit the floor.

Hurley staggered backward until he hit the edge of the altar. His hands were shaking. He hadn't expected the bastard to go for him. Brady stood in the doorway, his gun in his hand, looking from his leader to the nun now on her knees on the floor.

“You have nothing to bargain with,” the nun said, her voice ragged with pain as she touched Mac's bloody head. “You have nothing I want.”

“Not even your life? Or the life of your people? I will kill every woman here one by one. I will burn this piece of shite convent down to the bare rocks.”

She gazed serenely up at him. “And I will pray for you from the other side.”

Hurley stared at her upturned face with frustration and building fury.

Another soldier appeared in the door.

“Commander!” he said. “We've found one who'll talk.”

Hurley turned to see one of his soldiers prodding another nun into the room. She was elderly, her facial features sharp and bony. Her eyes went first to the nun's body on the floor, and then to Chezzie's and finally to Mac's. An involuntary groan escaped her.

“Sister Mary,” the head nun said, shaking her head.

Keeping his eyes on the woman in the doorway, Hurley lifted his gun and pointed it at the head nun's head where she knelt on the floor.

“Tell me or she dies.”

“
No
, Sister!” the head nun said more firmly.

Sister Mary eyes filled with tears.

“They went to Henredon Castle,” she said.

A
n hour
later Hurley stood at the verge of the woods until the very last Centurion had passed him. The sun had dropped and they would spend the night marching. Even if time wasn't crucial—
and it was
—he wouldn't have allowed his men to spend the night on the convent grounds. There was something about the place that unsettled them. They were hardened professional soldiers who would mindlessly obey his every order—as they'd proven in the last hour and many times before. But there was something about the convent and its occupants that shook them.

There would come a time when he would help them in the confusion they seemed to feel toward God or religion. But now was not the time. Not when every minute counted. Not when they were so close to their goal.

Henredon Castle wasn't an hour away from Hurley's boyhood village of Ardara. Like every other school child in the area Hurley had been to the castle many times.

Having to wait for his revenge churned in his stomach like a festering poison. He told himself it would make the final justice all the sweeter. But right now the waiting felt like a corn snake trying to choke down a too large rat.

The heat from the burning buildings behind him warmed his back. Stepping into the cold interior of the woods after his Centurions felt wrong. He and his men should be rewarded for their efforts in their quest and yet it felt as if they were stepping
away
from warmth and comfort, away from the light.

Very strange.

He twisted in his saddle to look back at the convent. Every building was on fire, including the little picket fence that surrounded the garden. He could just see the stark silhouettes of the three heads perched on staffs jammed into the ground by the front door of the convent.

The criminal Mac.

The informant Chezzie.

The cowardly Centurion who had hesitated to accept the honor of lighting the torch to the place.

He swung his horse's head away from the convent.

They would reach the castle in five days.

Three if they pushed.