Of Blood and Honey (Fey and the Fallen) (29 page)

She lay in the doorway between the bedroom and the kitchen. She was on her stomach, hands clutching her belly beneath her. The print skirt she had put on for University that morning was soaked black with the blood.

So much blood.

I knew. I should’ve been home,
he thought.

He was so certain she was gone that she groaned twice before he heard her. Rushing to her side, he gently rolled her over so that he sat with her head in his lap. Her face was bruised and splotched. He was fairly certain her nose was broken. At the edge of his awareness, clammy wetness seeped through his jeans.

“Mary Kate? I’m here. Say something. Anything.”

“Bastards.”

He wanted to hug her to him but couldn’t risk hurting her further.

“Fucking UDA.” It came out in a mumbling lisp. Her front teeth had been shattered. “Looking for you.” She started to sob. “Oh, Liam, the baby. They—they—”

“Shhhhh, hush now,” Liam said. “You’re both going to be all right. Mrs. Black went for Father Murray. We’ll get you to hospital.”

“It hurts.”

For a moment he couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat. He took a breath and forced the words out. “I know. Don’t move.”
Don’t take her from me. Please, God. Not her and the babe. Not now. I’ll do anything you want. Please. You can’t take her. It’s Christmas.

“I’m cold.”

Moving as little as possible, he reached to the bed and pulled the rumpled blanket to the floor. He draped it over her as best he could. “There. You’ll be warm soon.”

“I love you.” Tears streaked the drying blood on her face.

“I love you too.” He kissed her on her forehead and blinked, suppressing a compulsion to hunt down the three men now while he had the chance of catching them. The black monster shifted in the back of his brain, but was otherwise quiet. He didn’t understand why he didn’t feel anything—not even the tingling in his arms. He should be grieving. He should be raging. But there was nothing in him at all.

“Always loved you,” she lisped through her broken mouth. “Told Theresa Madden. Was going to marry you. Was twelve.”

“Hush now. Save your strength.”

She sobbed. “Don’t want to die. I want to stay with you.”

“You’re not going to die. You’re going to live.”

He sensed more than saw someone move in the doorway, but didn’t see anyone from his position on the floor.

“Why am I so cold?”

Where the fuck is Father Murray? The Church isn’t that far. What if he doesn’t come? What if she dies because I waited?

Mary Kate started having trouble breathing. Panic rippled through his body. He wedged himself under her until she was sitting up and then he wrapped his arms around her. He tried not to think of how sticky the floor was. His skin itched, and his face was cold. Her breathing eased. He rocked her slowly as if she were a fragile child.

“I’ll not leave you alone again. I’ll protect you. I swear it,” Liam said, and then started to hum without thinking. Too late he realized it was that stupid Bay City Rollers song, “Bye, Bye, Baby.”

A breathless laugh bubbled out of her mouth.

“What’s funny?”

“You never did have the music.”

Footsteps and voices echoed up the stairwell. Within moments Father Murray and Mrs. Black entered the flat. Father Murray’s brown hair hung in his shocked face.

“Over here, Father,” Liam said. “We have to get her to hospital. Can you drive the cab? I—I can’t.”

Father Murray nodded.

Liam reached into his coat pocket and held out the keys. His hand was stained crimson.

“I should do something.” Mrs. Black asked, biting her lip, “May I call her mother?”

“Number is on the kitchen counter,” Liam said, thinking he sounded too calm. “Call my mother too. If you would. Lock up, will you?” He clamped down on a laugh.
As if there was anything worth saving now.
He kissed the top of Mary Kate’s head. He felt better, stronger now that Father Murray was there. “Mary Kate, love, brace yourself. I’m going to lift you.”

“I love you so much.” Her voice was sleepy.

He wrapped the blanket around her battered body and gently looped his arms under her. She gasped in pain as he straightened. Father Murray led the way down the empty hallway. The soles of Liam’s work boots were slick with blood, and he concentrated on not slipping as he went down the stairs one at a time.
Too long. I’m taking too long. Shouldn’t have waited.
He got her to the cab without any disastrous mishaps and tucked her into the back. He got in next to her once she was settled and then they were off.

“I knew it,” he whispered. “Should’ve been home. I knew.”

“What do you mean?” Father Murray asked.

Please, God,
Liam thought.
I’ll never touch a drop again. I swear it. I’ll give up the cigarettes. Anything.
“I—I knew.”

It couldn’t have taken long to reach the hospital; it was only a few blocks away. He had a sense that Father Murray drove with speed and skill unexpected in a priest, but time had slowed. Mary Kate lay curled on the black leather seat, her skin glowing white in the darkness. Her eyes were closed, and he would’ve thought her asleep or dead were it not for the grip she had on his hand. Her lips moved, and he moved closer to hear.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“You haven’t done anything to be sorry for,” Liam said.

“I’m so sorry. For the baby. I shouldn’t have.”

He carried her into the hospital while Father Murray parked the car. It seemed to take forever for the nurses to take notice and even longer for them to bring a gurney. When he set her down Mary Kate cried out and clamped onto his hand with a surprising amount of force.

Liam smoothed the tangled hair off her face. “Shhh, you have to go with the doctors now.”

“No. Please.”

“I’ll not be far.”

Father Murray arrived just as they wheeled her away. A nurse handed Liam a clipboard and a pen. He stood, blank and empty, watching her retreat. The rubber soles of her white shoes squeaked on the grey linoleum. He glanced down at the clipboard. The text on the form shifted and scrambled before it blurred.
I can’t read it. I didn’t protect her, and now I can’t even fill out the fucking forms.
The ballpoint pen in his right hand shook.

“Let me take that,” Father Murray said. His voice was gentle and calming. “Come have a seat.”

“Is she going to die, Father?”

“I don’t know.”

Liam allowed Father Murray to lead him to one of the square plastic chairs with steel legs that were positioned against the wall.

Father Murray reached into a pocket. “Here,” he said, holding out a handful of black rosary beads. “It’ll give you something useful to do.”

The rosary felt warm in Liam’s otherwise numb fingers. He closed his eyes and started praying in an urgent whisper. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.” The words brought some measure of peace. As the antiseptic hospital smell penetrated the numbness he told himself that none of it was real. It was a bad dream, and he’d wake at any moment. “And in Jesus Christ his only son, Our Lord.”

Outside, someone was crying. A woman. He could hear her through the glass doors. They must’ve given her bad news. Her wails pierced the walls and rattled Liam’s nerves, breaking his concentration.

Somewhere a door swung open and hurried footsteps approached. “Father? Can I speak with you for a moment?” It was the doctor. Bright red splotches stained his white coat.

I should feel something,
Liam thought.
Why don’t I feel anything?

Father Murray put down the pen and the clipboard. Glancing over his shoulder he said, “Will you be all right for a little while, Liam?”

Liam swallowed and nodded. Shutting his eyes again, he returned to his prayers. He pretended he couldn’t hear the doctor whisper to Father Murray of what the three men had done to Mary Kate and that the baby was dead. He pretended not to hear Father Murray ask the doctor if he could enter the room to administer the Extreme Unction. The hairs on the backs of Liam’s arms stood up on end, and his skin bunched in cold knots.

Mary Kate wanted to go home for Christmas. She wanted to see the Giant’s Causeway. It was to be our first real holiday.

I should’ve come home. I didn’t protect my family.

A fierce pain pierced his chest. The woman outside continued her cries, if anything they grew louder. No one was comforting her in her grief. It occurred to him that she was alone. It wasn’t right for anyone to be alone with such news. He stood up, and the rosary fell from his nerveless hands. He would go to her, to the grieving woman. He’d comfort her.

He made it to the glass doors when he saw her standing on the walk. She was slender and graceful under the white old-fashioned dress. Long black hair curtained her face. He had placed a hand on the door’s handle when her chin lifted, and he saw her eyes. They glowed pale, silvery blue. He saw it had started raining. Big fat drops slammed the pavement. Her skirts blew in a wind that didn’t affect the nearby tree, and her hair floated, dry on the damp air.

“Liam,” Father Murray said. “You must come with me.”

“Can you see her?”

“Who?” Father Murray peered through the glass. “There isn’t anyone out there.”

Realization filtered through the haze.

“Come, Liam.”

Liam didn’t think he could move, but somehow he did. “I knew.” He understood he must’ve sounded mad, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t have stopped himself from speaking if he’d wanted to. “I knew it.”

“She needs you.” Father Murray’s hair hung in disheveled clumps. He held out a hand. “She’s lost too much blood.”

“I’ll go in, Father.”
I should’ve gone home. I shouldn’t have waited. I should’ve driven her to hospital myself. I should’ve risked it.

They’d tucked her into a bed with blankets and someone had cleaned her face. Her skin was so pale it was tinged with green. The stench of disinfectant and drying gore spooked him, and for one alarming moment he was torn between his terror of hospitals—
must leave, must get out of this fucking place
—and his love for Mary Kate. He shuddered with the need to run.
Fucking coward.
How could he even think of leaving her in the awful place? Alone?

Her eyes fluttered open, and he snatched her hand to tether himself. Unlike before, her grip was weak. The reality of it registered in his brain and in a flash his terror was gone.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “The baby.”

He buried his face in her chest and sobbed. He felt her hand on his head as if to comfort him. Her chest lifted once and then it was done. An instant and she was gone forever.

Liam felt someone tugging at him. He was hollow. Mary Kate lay still under his forehead, and no matter how he tried to convince himself he felt some small breath, some sign of life, there was none. Reluctant to see proof, he sat up and stared at the blank hospital room wall.

“Do you need anything from the flat?” It was Father Murray. “You can’t go back. The RUC are there. Do you understand?”

Liam blinked twice before slowly nodding. Not caring. He heard a soft tapping at the window and saw a moth fluttering against the glass. Stumbling across the room, he reached the window and pushed it open. The moth flitted through the gap and into the night.

“I’ll call for Mrs. Black. We’ll take care of the arrangements. But we must get you out of here.”

Shuffling toward the double glass doors like a sleepwalker, Liam was almost afraid he’d see the Banshee again, but the walk was empty. He’d somehow gotten to the cab. Glancing inside the window to the back seat, his emotions flooded in at the sight of Mary Kate’s blood. Feelings slammed into him so hard he couldn’t breathe or think. He caught himself with one hand on the glass; his reflection gawking back at him. The tingling ran up his arms and legs. Pain twisted inside his guts. His breath finally came but only in short gasps.

My fault. Should’ve been home.

Then they’d have had us both.

Took too long to get her to hospital. I should’ve taken the risk. I should have driven her myself.

“Liam?”

“Get back inside, Father.”

Liam didn’t turn around. He was afraid of what might happen if he did.

“I—I must tell you something.”

“I know what they—” He swallowed. The lump lodged in his throat hurt, but it was only another pain lost among a whole catalog of pains. “I know what they did to her.”

“It isn’t that,” Father Murray said.

Liam wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold himself together. Instinctively, he reached inside his pocket and found his lighter.
The lighter that Mary Kate painted the tricolor on,
he thought. He jerked his hand from his pocket and slapped it against the side of the taxi instead. “Get away, Father. Get away, now.”

“You won’t harm me.”

“Please, Father. Go.” Liam couldn’t stand straight anymore. His guts were twisting. The pain was awful. It was the monster clawing its way to the surface at last.

“You aren’t evil. Nor is whatever it is inside you. Evil isn’t capable of love. You loved Mary Kate, and she loved you.”

“Mary Kate didn’t know. Never saw it,” Liam said. “Father, please. You don’t know what will happen. I can’t control it.”

“Let it come. Whatever it is. We’ll deal with it together.”

“No.”

“What are you afraid of?” Father Murray asked. He paused and then seemed to come to a decision. “You’re wrong, you know. She did see it.”

Liam slammed his hand against the car door again. It wasn’t working—not this time. Nothing was the way it should be.
I don’t want to know this. Not now.
“You’re lying.”

“It wasn’t long after you were married. She told me she saw something while you were sleeping. At the time, she wasn’t sure what she should do. She came to me to ask whether she should stay.”

A cold knot formed in Liam’s stomach as pieces fit together in his head, forming an ugly picture.
We have to wait. Just a few years.
“It wasn’t about finishing university. Wasn’t about the money. She didn’t want to have a monster’s baby.” The ground seemed to shift from under him. He staggered.