The Raven Queen (3 page)

Una tutted, which just annoyed Maddy even more. She fished the biscuit tin out of her bag, walked over to a nearby bin, flipped the lid and slid the cake into the rubbish.

‘You are a wicked child,' said Una, with a slight smile hovering at the edges of her wrinkled lips. ‘And you're not too old for a smack either.'

Maddy grinned at her. ‘But you're far too short
to give me one. What are you going to do, stand on a box?'

Una laughed and crouched down on the pavement, poking a long black nail into her mouth to prise a last piece of toffee off her hardened gums. She sighed. ‘It's a shame Fionnula has to be angry with you – it's fierce hot. A lift would be nice.'

It certainly was. It was one of the rare days in Cork when the heat was not tempered by a dewy breeze blowing straight in off the sea. The air was still and heavy and Maddy could feel her hair dampening at the nape of her neck. She rubbed at her face. She never really coped well with the heat and always seemed to get a moustache of grime as sweat collected around her lips.

She sighed and eased her thumb under the bag's shoulder strap. She really should have brought a bottle of water, but she did not think of it, and she had no money to buy one. Of course, she had thought she was going to be getting a lift home.

‘C'mon, we might as well get walking,' she said to the little banshee. ‘I'll probably cop an earful if she thinks I've been messing on the way.'

But just as the words left her mouth, the blistering heat cooled, just a little, a tang of ozone tickled her nostrils and her sweat-wet hair rose on the nape of her
neck. Maddy and Una stared at each other, their eyes widening in fear.

‘Can you feel that too?' asked Maddy.

Una nodded and stood up, her eyes darting from side to side. ‘We have to get you out of here … we're too far from the city … we need to be surrounded by iron!'

‘They can't get at me here. The city is only twenty minutes' walk away!' said Maddy.

‘Too far, still too far. It won't stop a solitary, one of the older, stronger faeries; they can still get to you …'

Una broke off and her eyes narrowed as she gazed down the quiet road, only the odd passing car throwing up the dust that coated the tarmac.

Maddy followed her gaze: something was on the road, something big and black that was slowly moving toward them. She stood, frozen to the spot with fascination, as every fibre in her body told her to run away screaming, watching as the object drew close and became clearer.

It was a man riding a black horse, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed from head to foot in thick, heavy black. Black leather gloves covered the huge hands that rested lightly on the reins, black leather riding boots reached above his knees. Despite the exhausting heat, his whole body was swathed in a musty black cloak. The massive animal that he rode drew level with Maddy, but she could not bring herself to look as its angry eye rolled
at her. It chomped on its bit as sweat and saliva foamed and frothed down the bulging muscles in its chest. No. She looked past the animal to the tall, stiff collar of the rider's cloak, the collar standing proud around empty air, and then dropped her gaze to the rider's lap, where his head was sitting.

The pale, bald pate glowed with a sickly green light that beat against the summer haze and its small black eyes darted about in its sockets. A hideous, idiotic grin split its thin lips, and as Maddy watched the body gathered up the reins in one hand, scooped the head up with the other and held it out to her on its massive palm.

The eyes suddenly stopped darting about and focused on Maddy's green ones, its tightly clenched teeth fell open and a black tongue caressed the air as it spoke a word, carried on a breath that smelt of sickly sweet rot.

‘Maaddieee,' it said.

As soon as the last syllable of her name escaped those shrivelled lips, the teeth snapped shut again and the monstrous faerie began to lose his grip on the mortal world. Before Maddy's eyes, he began to fade and drift apart like smoke in the wind as the binding magic of Tír na nÓg called him back. Maddy watched, transfixed, until all that was left was that rictus grin, hanging in the air like the Cheshire Cat's. As soon as it disappeared, with a pop of imploding air, she turned to look at Una.

‘That was the dullahan,' Maddy said, her voice shaking with fear. She felt herself choke on her words and stopped for a moment to clear her throat. ‘What is he doing here, so far from Liadan's court? Why did he say my name? I didn't even know he could speak!'

‘He normally doesn't,' said Una, her eyes fixed on the spot where the faerie had stood. ‘He never does, unless …'

‘Unless what?' prompted Maddy. ‘Unless
what
, Una?'

The banshee gave herself a little shake and looked at Maddy, her dark eyes despairing. ‘He's the soul collector, Maddy. He doesn't speak except to say the name of the person whose soul he will come for next.'

The world fell away under her feet as Maddy's terrified brain processed what Una had just said. The sound of her own blood roared in her ears and drowned out the noise of a car passing by and a lawnmower droning in a front garden. Her lips struggled silently to form the words that tripped and stumbled into place in her mind.

‘That means … that means …' she stuttered.

‘It means Liadan has put a sentence of death on you and has sent the dullahan to deliver it personally.'

‘So it's finally happening,' said Maddy with numb lips. ‘She's coming after me.'

‘This is much, much bigger than you now,' hissed Una as she pulled her rags closer about her skinny body. ‘You swore an oath of fealty to Meabh and the Autumn Court when you needed her protection. Remember? For Liadan to go after you, a subject of the Autumn Court, is an open declaration of war. She
cannot
attack another court like this and not expect them to retaliate.'

‘War?' asked Maddy.

Una nodded once, a curt bob of her head. ‘War,' she sighed. ‘It has come at last. While all the Tuatha have
been spoiling for it, it would
have
to be Liadan who tipped the scales. The Winter Queen is truly mad. She will destroy everything in a fit of temper for not getting her own way.'

Maddy shuddered.
What she wants is my head on a stick
, she thought.
Maybe another faerie will give it to her to avoid a war
.

Una must have been thinking the same thing. ‘I have to tell your granda. He can keep you safe,' said Una.

‘No, don't!' said Maddy.

‘Why ever not, child?' asked Una, her dark eyes snapping with anger.

‘We knew this was coming, Una. It's why he sent me to Cork in the first place, remember?' said Maddy. ‘Surround me with iron, keep the faeries away, and hope that they forget about me and we can all go back to living normal lives.' She laughed, a bitter sound without humour. ‘I told him it wouldn't work.'

‘And what will keeping secrets achieve?'

‘I don't want to keep secrets from him, Una, I just want time to think!' said Maddy, her voice rising with anger.

‘Think about
what
?!' demanded the banshee, her own voice shrill with temper. ‘Do you think you can handle this on your own? Is that it? The last time you went up against the Winter Queen you nearly died – you
have a lovely scar on your shoulder to remind you of that!'

‘I know, but—'

‘And if you're thinking Meabh is going to come to your rescue, you can think again,' Una snapped. ‘Meabh does nothing for anyone unless it suits her. I've seen enough of Meabh over the centuries to know that what suits her often ends in nothing but pain and trouble for others. So we are
not
going down that road!'

Maddy knew full well what Meabh thought of her. It was ten months since Maddy had pledged her allegiance to the Autumn Queen. Ten months since she had found out she was the new Hound of Ireland, thanks to the blood of heroes that ran through her veins. It didn't make much difference to Maddy's life – it gave her no superpowers, no advantages at all. The only thing it brought was trouble, as it seemed to make her irresistible to faeries and make Sighted humans – humans who, like Maddy, could see faeries – look at her as if she was an unexploded bomb. She remembered what Meabh had said to her when Maddy realized she had been tricked into swearing an oath of fealty.

Now that I've collared you and leashed you, I'll stoke those fires in you. And when the time comes and I let loose the dogs of war, the Hound of Ireland will lead my pack, baying for blood.

She swallowed. ‘I have no idea what I am going to do, Una, but if you give me a couple of hours I might think of something,' she said.

‘Oh no,' said Una. ‘I know what kind of daft ideas you come up with when you are left to your own devices. No, I told your granda I was going to look out for you, and that's exactly what I am going to do.' Maddy watched in horror as Una's wizened little body began to ripple away from her, the little faerie moving so fast her body was a long blur that left streaks of colour in the air behind, like fuel trails from a jet.

‘Una, wait!' Maddy lunged at the little faerie woman but it was too late. The banshee was gone and would no doubt be talking to her granda within half an hour.

‘I hate it when you do that!' shouted Maddy, even though the faerie was now long gone. The fat little man mowing his lawn gazed at her suspiciously. Maddy was suddenly very conscious that she was raving at thin air at the entrance to a home for the mentally ill. She smiled nervously at the man and then began to walk quickly in the direction of Cork city and Aunt Fionnula's house.

The dullahan was an old and powerful faerie, strong enough to pierce the barrier that kept the mortal and faerie worlds separate, even for just a few minutes. Halloween was when the barrier was weakest, the best time for the faerie to break loose, but that was still
three months away. Maddy was sure there would be no other faeries stalking her as she walked home. Even so, it was an effort to stop her shaking legs from breaking into a run, to get away from green suburbia with the countryside lapping its boundaries into the iron heart of Cork city.

Maddy didn't own a summer dress, and her jeans stuck to her sweat-slicked skin, taking away all her flexibility. She felt as if she was lumbering along like a mummy and that was going to make her just as conspicuous to a lurking faerie as it would if she sprinted home. Sweat made her scalp itchy and her thick brown hair sat like thatch on her head, the sun beating down on it. She tried not to flinch at sudden loud noises or peer too closely at the faces of passers-by or children playing on the pavement. One little girl made her flinch, her narrow pointed face and shock of red hair as she looked up from chalking the pavement catching Maddy's eye. The flash of green eyes, the long thin bones of her hands, made Maddy suspect a faerie, but the child's eyes were clear and innocent.

Her body screamed with tension and her back was aching from the effort of keeping her muscles clenched by the time she turned on to the street where Aunt Fionnula lived. It was an ugly little road, built in the 1960s with tonnes of concrete to form grey houses, grey
pavements, and a cracked and neglected tarmac road, but Maddy could have dropped to her knees and kissed the dusty ground. Devoid of any landscaping to soften its harshness, and with many of the tiny back gardens smothered in decking, there was no lush vegetation here to attract faeries, no wood copses where trees bent feathery heads together to talk, no streams to sing to birds while their waters sparkled like diamonds in the summer sun. It was as soulless and miserable an urban environment as anyone hiding from a faerie could hope for, where every pitted, stained surface reflected the heat and the taste of dust coated Maddy's mouth. As much as Maddy hated Aunt Fionnula and hated her overcrowded, cluttered house, right now she was grateful that she lived here and not in the soft, green village of Blarney, so close to the faerie mound.

She pushed open the spindly black iron gate that marked the boundary of the house from the road. It was a tiny house, jammed tight into a terrace and, like many of their neighbours, Aunt Fionnula and Uncle Jack had concreted over the front garden so they could have off-street parking. As she walked up the path, Maddy quickly scanned the terrace to count how many other front gardens were the same, how many patches of earth were crushed by slabs of concrete, seedlings choked off in the dark. The less nature she could see, the better she felt.

The front door was glazed top and bottom with a dimpled brown glass that allowed her see a watery outline of a figure standing in the hallway. From the curve of the big belly she could see it was Uncle Jack. She didn't have a front door key – she guessed her aunt didn't want her to feel like she was a member of the family or anything – so she knocked on the glass to be let in. She scanned the street behind her as she waited, her fingertips touching the smooth surface of the letter box for the comforting feel of metal. But apart from the odd car whizzing past and a few small kids playing with a skipping rope, there was not a soul to be seen.

She turned back to the door and squinted through the glass – Uncle Jack hadn't moved and it looked as if he was on the phone. Maddy hissed through her teeth with frustration and tried to ignore the sick feeling of fear in her stomach. The skin on her back crawled as she faced the door – as peaceful as things here looked, she didn't completely trust that some triple-jointed, long-nailed hand was not going to reach out and grab her. She knocked again and glared at Uncle Jack.

‘Come on. What are you doing in there? What's so important you can't answer the door?' she muttered.

But still he yakked on and still he ignored her. The sweat that was trickling under her clothes now had nothing to do with the heat. A little voice in her head
kept yammering at her to get inside, to get out of sight, that the longer she stood on the doorstep the more chance there was something bad was going to happen to her. Not logical, but still …