CHAPTER Twelve Dublin
Rosie’s hunters had been active for about a month. Long enough to develop a little confidence in their ability to leave Loti and return safely. While the Wild Bunch were busy perfecting their skills and expanding their knowledge of how to navigate the passes, the academics at Black Swan headquarters had been busy deciding how best to use their talents. In other words, where to begin?
After weeks of debate, they had come to a grudging consensus that Dublin would be the best place to begin routing out undesirable aliens.
Based on a historical pattern of disturbances originating in Dublin, Rosie went personally to investigate and see if she could locate an interdimensional stream portal that was acting as a hub or crossroads for traffic in and out of Loti. She was told to look in the area of Trinity College and Temple Bar.
It took her less than an hour to find the location. It was under Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Founded in 1191, it was the National Cathedral of the Church of Ireland. With its forty-three-meter spire, it was the tallest church in Ireland and the largest. It was also a deceptively benign disguise for a portal used frequently enough by other species, mostly elementals, to be compared to a revolving door. Black Swan had a vampire hunter unit in Dublin, but it was at full capacity and she felt strongly that D.I.T. should have a place of its own.
So, after Grieve performed a little real estate magic, Black Swan bought a house in the neighborhood that would accommodate four teams. That was as many people as she was willing to allocate to that particular mission at that particular time. Grieve found someone through personnel who could manage housekeeping and breakfast. They agreed the hunters would either cook on their own or get meals out the rest of the time. Rosie might as well have said breakfast in, other meals out, because none of the hunters were going to spend off time cooking.
Besides it was more fun to spend evenings at Temple Bar.
Two of the teams going were the O’Malleys and their partners. Shivaun still wasn’t speaking to Sheridan, which compromised the joy of being newly mated, but Sher’s happiness with Finngarick couldn’t be completely overshadowed by Shivaun’s unwillingness to bend.
No one could possibly have been more shocked than Finngarick when Rosie put him in charge of the Dublin unit for the time they were there. Sheridan wasn’t the slightest surprised.
As she descended the stairs for breakfast, she heard Torn saying, “How can you tell if an Irishman is havin’ a good time?”
“How?” someone said.
“He’s Dublin over with laughter!”
Torn’s laughing eyes jerked to Sheridan as she stepped off the bottom stair and approached the breakfast room. She knew she’d never get tired of that look that was a fiery mixture of love, lust, and possession; embers perpetually glowing ready to burst into flame with the slightest provocation.
Teams were on call on rotating shifts. Their job was to loiter around Saint Patrick’s so that, if the new monitoring station in Edinburgh picked up activity, they’d be essentially on site and ready to go. They had to be outfitted when they were working, which meant Sher and Shy had to have their bows and quivers with them. Other equipment could be easily hidden in clothing, but the bows required a special permit arranged courtesy of Black Swan.
Finngarick and Sheridan had enjoyed a nice breakfast and settled down on a pew inside Saint Patrick’s to spend their shift in quiet conversation, holding hands, exchanging sweet nothings and talking about what they would do someday when they retired from Black Swan.
They both had watches that sent haptic signals when activity registered. Three times they’d given chase through the sublevel portal and once they’d thought they might actually catch their target.
On that particular day, at that particular time Deck and Shivaun were just going off duty. Since they got the same signal at the same time, they headed downstairs via a closet passageway and reached the portal at the same time as Torn and Sher.
“We’re here. We might as well go, too,” said Deck.
“Fine with us,” Finngarick said, as he stepped in and disappeared.
Shivaun caught Sheridan’s eyes for the first time in a month, but quickly looked away and followed Torn into the passes.
Once inside, Finngarick led the way followed by Sheridan, then Shivaun with Deck bringing up the rear. There was a streak of light ahead, exactly as Rosie had described, and Finngarick pushed himself to go faster than he’d ever gone before.
Suddenly it disappeared.
He came to a halt and turned to motion to the others that they’d lost the target. Again.
But when he looked behind him, he saw Deck and Shivaun, but not Sheridan. He whirled around in a circle. She wasn’t there.
He tried to talk, forgetting that only telepaths could communicate in the passes. He sounded like he was underwater. So he motioned for them to follow and they ducked into the nearest world. He hoped it was hospitable since they didn’t have time for anything else.
“She’s gone.”
“Gone?” said Shivaun, looking around. She frowned. “You mean my sister?”
“Aye. Gone! AS IN NO’ HERE!”
“Keep your shirt on,” Deck said. “Yelling won’t get her back sooner.”
Finngarick and Shivaun both looked at him like he was insane. In times of high emotion, people yelled. Period.
Shivaun grabbed Torn’s shirt collar in both hands. Her facial expression was on speed morph between panic, livid, distress, and intent-to-kill. “You lost my sister?”
“I DID NO’ LOSE HER!” He stopped and pulled Shy’s hands away from his collar. His shoulders slumped when he realized that he might have lost her. “Least I do no’ remember doin’ so. She was behind me. Then she was no’.”
Shivaun yelled out a sound of frustration between grief and growl.
“Look.” Deck stepped in. “This is exactly why they had us do the drills. So we could find our way back if we got separated. She’s got her compass. She’ll probably beat us back to the portal.”
That made sense and relieved Torn’s mind. Some. “So we’ll go back,” he said.
As she passed by to step back into the passes, Shivaun looked at him and simply said, “Fucker.”