The Unicorn Hunter (27 page)

‘You cannot stop what is coming,' she said. ‘Be brave,
a chuisle
, and keep your eyes open when he dies. He deserves that from you.'

‘Bang Bang, run!' screamed Roisin, as she twisted in the Tuatha guard's arms. Bang Bang was clearly upset and confused as he looked about and then he started muttering and staring at his fingers as they twisted about each other.

Tears streamed down Maddy's face. ‘Please don't do this,' she called to Cernunnos. ‘Meabh … my queen, I beg you, protect him.'

But Meabh just smiled at Maddy and ran her fingertips lightly over her ruby red lips.

‘As the unicorn is the purest creature on earth, the symbol of righteousness, let him avenge his mate,' said Cernunnos.

The unicorn stallion lowered his head and broke into a gallop, his horn pointing straight at Bang Bang. Bang Bang looked up at the sound of thundering hoofs, and at the sight of the unicorn a beatific smile broke over his face and he held out his arms just as the stallion's horn collided with his chest. There was a dull thud and
Bang Bang was thrown through the air, to lie still on his back, his open eyes gazing up at the night sky. The unicorn snorted and tossed his head, spattering the grass with beads of blood before returning to the mare's side.

All the feeling left Maddy's legs and she slid to the ground, her eyes fixed on Bang Bang, as the Tuatha guard stepped away from her. She could hear Roisin screaming and Danny shouting as they ran toward Bang Bang. Stunned, she climbed to her feet and staggered over to join them. He was still breathing, his eyes shining with apparent joy as he said something over and over again. Maddy bent to put her ear to his lips while Roisin wept and pressed her jacket against his wound.

‘So beautiful,' Bang Bang whispered. ‘So, so beautiful.'

His eyes began to close and Maddy shook his shoulder. ‘Don't go to sleep, Bang Bang. Keep talking to us!'

‘So tired …' he whispered.

‘I know, Bang Bang, but you have to keep talking to me. You've got to stay awake just a little while longer,' said Maddy.

‘Tell me a bedtime story,' said Bang Bang. ‘A story full of white castles and pretty queens.'

The tears were pouring silently down Maddy's
cheeks and she wiped her nose on her sleeve as her voice thickened. ‘I will, Bang Bang, I'll tell you any story you like, but you have to promise to stay awake.' George crept over to him and licked his face. Fenris and Nero padded over and looked down at the dying man, their eyes crinkled with distress.

‘Story …' whispered Bang Bang, as his eyelids grew heavier and heavier. ‘I promise …' His eyes closed as his breath faded and his head drooped to one side.

‘Bang Bang? Bang Bang, wake up!' Maddy shook him hard by the shoulders, but Bang Bang's head lolled on his neck. Roisin began to cry, huge, hitching sobs that sounded as if they were being torn from her chest. George whimpered, while Danny crouched in the grass, clutching handfuls of his hair in white-knuckled fists and staring at Bang Bang in horror.

Maddy smelt wet leaves and rain carried on the breeze and looked up to find Meabh standing over her. The dimming glow told her the other courts were leaving, Bang Bang little more than litter left on the ground to them.

‘Why couldn't Cernunnos have shown mercy?' she asked.

‘Because you could not,' said Meabh. ‘He swore an oath to you and he had to give you what you demanded.'

‘I never wanted this,' she said, half blind with tears.

‘Yes, you did,' said Meabh. ‘When you thought it was one of us, you did. All that hatred and rage inside of you wanted exactly this. You denied what is inside you, girl, so you were blind to what was guiding you. Those twin snakes whispered in your ear and you thought you were being
moral
and
righteous
. Tell me, hero, how does it feel now?'

‘Bad,' Maddy whispered. ‘But you like the hate and the rage, don't you? It's why you tricked me.'

‘Aye, girl, I tricked you,' said Meabh. ‘And 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.'

‘Never,' said Maddy.

Meabh tipped her head to one side and smiled. ‘We shall see, Feral Child. I have you for three years. Who knows what I can make you do in that time?' She bent and pressed her lips to Maddy's forehead. ‘I am your mother now and I will be seeing you again very, very soon.'

A wind blew up from nowhere and Meabh disappeared in her whirlwind of fiery autumn leaves. Maddy became aware of Roisin pumping Bang Bang's chest and counting. The last of the faeries must have left because Danny had a mobile signal. ‘Hello?' she
heard him say. ‘Granda, we need you to come get us. Something really bad has happened …'

Maddy slumped to one side and gazed dry-eyed at the rising sun, wrapping her arms around George as, still whimpering, he cuddled into her chest.

The Sighted took Bang Bang's body away. After all she had done, Maddy felt sick with shame when people touched her with gentle hands and told her with kind voices not to worry, that they would sort everything out. She wanted them to scream and shout and vilify her for what she had done. Bang Bang was dead and it was all her fault. She was going to have to live with that knowledge forever.

Roisin had been led away sobbing, but Maddy thought she could hear Danny arguing with someone. She couldn't be bothered to investigate. She just sat on the grass, clutching George to her chest like a favourite soft toy. Familiar feet stopped in front of her and a man crouched down to peer up into her face. Granda.

‘Thank God, you're all safe,' he said.

Maddy looked at him dully but she didn't say a word.

He sighed. ‘Things have gone too far. You're leaving
for Cork city, Maddy, right now. No arguments. I don't want you to go, love, but it is for the best.'

‘And what then?' she asked.

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean, what do we do when you've packed me off to the city?'

Granda frowned. ‘Nothing, Maddy.'

‘Nothing?' she echoed.

‘We're going to surround you with iron and we're going to keep you hidden from the Tuatha. They'll forget about you eventually.'

‘That's it?' said Maddy, anger rising in her stomach, making her feel light-headed. ‘Bang Bang is dead and you are going to do nothing?'

‘I've told you before – there is nothing we can do to fight the Tuatha. I thought tonight would have shown you this.'

Maddy put George down and climbed slowly to her feet.

‘I can do something though, can't I? I can do
plenty
.'

She turned and ran, ignoring Granda's shouts behind her. She ran away from the crushed bloody grass where Bang Bang's body had lain, back past the housing estates, through the village, ignoring the people staring at her, and through the grounds of the castle, her breath sawing in and out of her wounded chest,
rasping on her ribs like a hand saw. The ground flew beneath her feet and her blood pounded so hard in her ears she thought her head would burst. She raced over the bridge, through the meadow and up to the foot of the castle. She briefly glimpsed a gleam of turquoise as a pair of wolves watched her go before they turned to walk through the tunnel that led to the mound. She let them go without a word, running on until she reached the stairs that wound their way through the heart of the castle. She took them two at a time, her hands scrabbling for purchase, her nails breaking against the castle's stone skin. She ran across the battlements while the wind shrieked and pulled her hair, lay down at the gap in the walls and bent backwards to put one hand against the Blarney Stone. She bared her teeth and let her rage and grief boil over and form a hard point in her mind, slamming it into the stone as it swallowed her hand, making the stone's consciousness scream with pain. Her mind flew to the Coranied's citadel and she saw them look up as the shadows swirled around her.

‘I know what kind of Hound I am,' she said, her voice rich and thick with hate, anger licking along its edges. She laughed as they got up from their seats and left their cauldrons to look at her. ‘Do you want to see me as I really am, what I'm like inside?'

But it wasn't a skinny, tangle-haired girl that walked
out of the shadows; it was a massive wolfhound, muzzle furrowed in a snarl as it bared its teeth, its eyes brimming with green fire. The creature snapped at the air with fangs like knives as it advanced, turning over cauldrons as it shouldered them aside, toppling piles of books. The raven fluttered on its chain as it struggled to free itself from its perch while the Coranied backed away from the monstrous beast as it swept potions from tables with its tail and ripped leather-bound books to shreds. The black-robed prophets gathered at the furthest end of the room and watched in silence while the animal destroyed their domain and then threw its head back and howled. That cry, so full of rage and pain, reverberated around Tír na nÓg and it rang in Maddy's ears for long moments after she pulled her hand away from the cowed Stone. She lay on her back in the cold shadow of the castle's battlements and gazed hard-eyed at the sky.

Bang Bang was dead, because of her. All her efforts to play the hero had come to nothing. She thought about what Meabh had said and imagined snakes coiling their way through her stomach and her veins, dripping venom as they went. Was it true? Was she still full of the worst emotions, the things she didn't like to admit to herself? Was it impossible for her to do anything, feel anything, that would not be tainted by the thoughts and feelings that lurked in the darkest corners of her mind, if she
wouldn't look them full in the face? Was the real Maddy a much worse girl than the one she saw in the mirror?

She sighed, a deep, gusting breath that belonged in the body of someone much older, and got to her feet. The sun was creaking its weary way into the sky and she turned her face to its rays. It could have been her imagination, but she thought it had regained some of its weak autumn warmth. She walked down the stairs to the entrance of the castle and emerged into a bright morning filled with birdsong. It was hard to believe in the horrors of the previous night, that somewhere nearby Bang Bang's blood was staining wet grass.

The cark park of the castle should have been deserted at this time of day, but instead it was full of the silent Sighted, who watched with wary eyes as she emerged through the gap in the fence. A taxi waited, its engine idling, pumping out blue fumes into the chill air. Granda stood by the driver's side and she could see Danny and Roisin's white faces peering out at her from the back seat.

‘So this is it, is it? No reprieve?' she asked Granda, her voice hoarse with exhaustion.

‘It's for the best, Maddy,' said Granda, his face shadowed by his flat cap. ‘It's too dangerous for you to stay here. One of these days you're going to tangle with the faeries and come off worse. Or dead.'

She shivered in the cold air and wrapped her jacket tight around her. The driver wouldn't look at her, just stared straight ahead with his hands clenched on the steering wheel. The rest of the Sighted still had not spoken a word.

‘You're doing this for them, aren't you?' she asked Granda, pointing at the silent crowd with her chin. ‘They are too frightened for me to stay here. They want me to go away, and all the trouble with it.'

‘You can't …'

‘… blame them, so you keep saying,' interrupted Maddy. ‘But I do, all the same. Because the faeries aren't going to go away, and getting rid of me isn't going to solve anything. Meabh wants her war, and for some reason she wants me in it.' She looked over his shoulder at the Sighted. ‘Are you always going to make me face them alone?' she asked in a louder voice. They still did not break their silence, but she noticed a few of them were embarrassed enough not to meet her eye. She looked back at Granda. ‘They could do so much more.'

‘They're only flesh and blood, Maddy, as am I,' said Granda. ‘And you wouldn't have to face the faeries alone if you stopped running after them looking for a fight.'

‘I did what I had to do,' said Maddy, and an image of Fachtna's face twisted into a sneer popped into her head.

Granda nodded. ‘And now, so am I,' he said, opening
the back door of the taxi. ‘I'll hide you, Maddy, until the Tuatha find some other distraction.'

She refused to look at Granda as the taxi pulled out of the car park, taking her away from Blarney and into the iron heart of the city. ‘You can't,' said Maddy, her eyes dull with defeat.

 

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