Island of Glass Read online

  which is, handily, only about twenty kilometers east of Ennis. This works out, we get pizza, guns, and ammo in one trip.”

  Not on his bike, Doyle thought with disappointment. So it would mean taking Bran’s car. “I’m driving.”

  “Why is that? I know the roads better.”

  “And how is that?”

  “Because I’ve been here in the past decade and, in fact, consulted for a time on the Craggaunowen Project, which we’ll pass on the way to this barn.”

  “Then you can navigate, but I’m driving.”

  “We’ll flip for the wheel.”

  “No.”

  “You prefer rock, paper, scissors?”

  He didn’t dignify that with an answer, and just continued to read. “This accounting is worthless. It talks of four sisters—in Ireland—charged with guarding an infant queen. Three were pure, and one was lured by a dark faerie, who with promises of power and eternal beauty, turned her against the other three.”

  “Not worthless,” Riley disagreed. “Just the Telephone Game of Time. The root’s there.”

  “Well tangled. It says the three good sisters hid the infant in a castle of glass on an invisible island, and flew to the moon, becoming stars. And in her rage, the fourth sister struck them down from the heavens, blah, blah. One fell as lightning, striking the earth with fire, another into the sea in a swirling tempest, the last into the north where it covered the land with ice.”

  “Not that far off.”

  He spared her a single look that mixed equal parts annoyance and frustration. “Far enough when you’ve got the queen—apparently growing up fast—flying from the invisible island on a winged horse to do battle with the evil sister, vanquishing her and turning her to stone.”

  “Shake out the probable hyperbole, and you find roots. Nerezza materialized out of a stone column in a cave on Corfu.”

  Doyle put the book aside. “I’ve lived a long time without seeing a winged horse.”

  “I’ll bet you lived a long time without seeing a Cerberus until recently.”

  He couldn’t argue that. And still. “It’s a Brothers Grimm version, and bastardized at that.”

  “Retellings get bastardized and elaborated,” Riley pointed out. “That’s why you dig out the root. Four sisters.” She held up four fingers. “Four goddesses. It’s not the first time I’ve heard or read of them being sisters. It may be they are. Invisible island, Island of Glass, appears and vanishes as it wills. Three stars—fire, water, ice.”

  “It doesn’t add anything.”

  Civilians, she thought, with some pity. “Not yet. Being thorough may be tedious, Doyle, but being thorough’s how you find what’s been overlooked or discounted. There are worse things than sitting in a comfortable chair in a library reading a book.”

  “A little sex and violence in it would keep it from being so tedious.”

  “Read on. You could get lucky.” Her phone signaled, and she smiled at the readout. “I’m betting we just did. Hello, Liam,” she said, and wandered back to the window as she brokered the deal.

  Since she clearly had it handled, Doyle went back to the book. He could be grateful, at least, that the particular story in it was fairly short. Though the queen defeated the evil sister, the loss of the others, the stars, grieved her. She returned to her island, exiling herself until prophet, siren, and warrior lifted the stars from their graves so they shined again.

  He pulled over Riley’s pad, scribbled a note.

  He started to flip through, see if another story in the book of folklore addressed the stars, then set the book down when Sawyer came in.

  “Okay if I use the other half of the table? I want to try out the maps in here.”

  “No problem. In fact, I’ll work with you, leave the books to Gwin.”

  “That’s not all you can leave to Gwin.” Riley smiled, smug, as she pocketed her phone. “I just scored us all the ammo on your list, Dead-Eye.”

  “The underwater rounds, too?”

  “Yeah, them, too. And I got us a pair of Ruger AR-556, along with two dozen thirty-round mags.”

  “Never shot that model,” Sawyer said.

  “Me either. The deal’s contingent on me looking them over, testing them out. But I googled it while he was talking, and they should be more than fine. Doyle and I can pick them up, along with the ammo, swing back, get the pizza, and we’re set.”

  “Unless you want to go along,” Doyle put in. Send the two of them, he thought, and spare him the drive with Riley.

  “Wouldn’t mind, but no way I’d talk Anni out of coming if I did.” Sawyer’s eyes, gray as fog, showed both fear and humor. “Then she’s loose in Ennis. Shopping.”

  “Forget it. There and back. Good thing I hit an ATM in Capri or I’d be light on my share.” Riley checked the time. “I’m going to dive in here until noon.”

  “I’ll be working with Sawyer on the maps,” Doyle told her.

  “Fine.” She sat, frowned at his scribbled note. “What’s this about prophet, siren, and warrior?”

  “According to the fairy tale you had me slog through, the queen’s exiled herself on her island until they find the stars and let them shine again.”

  “Always a root,” Riley muttered, picked up the book herself.

  And happily gave herself over to digging.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sporting a few bruises from hand-to-hand—Sasha was becoming fierce—Riley tossed a small pack over her shoulder, headed out to Bran’s car.

  She preferred to drive rather than ride, honestly didn’t understand anyone who didn’t. But Doyle had called it first, and as one who respected dibs, she climbed in the shotgun seat, prepared to relax.

  Ireland had excellent scenery, and when you drove—at least the way she did—you didn’t have a chance to enjoy it.

  When Doyle got behind the wheel, she decided she’d be friendly.

  “Too bad we can’t take the bike. How was the ride with Anni?”

  He backed up, swung around, headed down the bumpy drive toward the road. “There’s a village about eight kilometers off the route I took. It has a couple shops. I’m still wondering how she talked me into turning off and stopping.”

  “She has breasts.”

  “She’s another man’s woman.”

  “Who still has breasts. And a whole truckload of charm.” She shifted to take the weight off her left hip.

  “You took a good spill toward the end of hand-to-hand.”

  “Sasha’s craftier than she used to be. My mistake for holding back.”

  “Bran could have taken care of any bruises.”

  “You don’t have a few bruises, it wasn’t a good fight.”

  The world was beautiful here, she thought. Untamed and rugged even with the rolls of green, the bundles of cropping sheep. It had a wild, timeless feel that had always spoken to her.

  The farmer in the field with his tractor—hadn’t his ancestors cultivated that same field with plow and horse? And the simple art of those stone walls. Hadn’t those stones been dug and pulled out of those same fields by hands now buried in graveyards?

  Take away the paved road, the cars, the scatter of modern houses, and it wouldn’t look so very different from when Doyle had lived here. Which was something, she thought, he was bound to feel.

  Above, the sky had gone from soft blue to sulky with clouds. They drove into rain, then out again.

  “Biggest invention or discovery.”

  He spared her a frown. “What?”

  “What’s your pick for most important invention or discovery—since you’ve seen a bunch of them in three centuries—to date.”

  “I’m not looking to take a quiz.”

  “It’s not a quiz, it’s a question. I’m interested in your opinion on it.”

  He might have preferred silence, but knew her well enough now to know she’d keep at him. “Electricity, as it opened the door to other advances that needed it.”

  “Yeah, a big leap. I
go with fire—the discovery. But for technology, can’t argue with electricity.”

  “If you’re going back to the dawn of time—which is well before mine—you’d have the invention of common tools, the wheel.”

  “Discovering salt and its uses,” she added. “Herbal medicines, learning how to make brick, cut stone, build wells and aqueducts. Did you go to school? You’re going to want to take a left on the road coming up.”

  He made the turn, said nothing.

  “It’s tough for someone in my line of work not to have some curiosity about a man who’s lived through eras I’ve studied. That’s all.”

  “I had schooling.”

  “I wondered if, given the amount of time and opportunities, you’d gone for more education.”

  “I learned when something interested me.”

  “Uh-huh.” The road narrowed, wound, and snaked. She loved these kinds of roads, the quick turns, the hedgerows, the blurry flash of a dooryard garden. “Languages. You’ve got a good head for languages.”

  “I’ve been looking for the stars longer than you’ve been alive. Longer than your grandmother’s been alive. So I’ve traveled. Traveling’s more productive if you speak the language.”

  “No argument. Next road, right. Why a sword? You’re a solid shot with a gun.”

  “If I’m going to kill a man, I’d rather look him in the eye. And,” he said after a long beat of silence, “it helps me remember who I am. It’s easy to forget.”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think you ever forget.”

  He didn’t want to ask, had deliberately not asked. But now couldn’t stop himself. “Why did you come to the graves last night?”

  “I was heading back and I saw you. I respect the dead, who and what they were, what they did, how they lived, what they left behind. You said they weren’t there. You’re right, and you’re wrong.”

  “How can I be both?”

  “They’ve moved on, recycled, which is how I think of reincarnation. That’s how the system works for me. But they’re still there, because you are. Because the land they lived on, they worked on, where they built a home and a life, it’s there.”

  Riley kept her eyes on the scenery as she spoke because she felt it would be easier for him. “There are trees in the forest that lived when they lived, and they’re still there.

  “The Craggaunowen Project, where I consulted? It’s not far from here. Neither is Dysert O’Dea, both amazing places. There are countless places absolutely amazing in Ireland, because it respects its history—its long and layered history—and those who came before, what they did, how they lived and died. That’s why you can feel them here, if you let yourself, and other places in the world are voids because in those places everything’s about what’s next, and nobody much cares about what was.”

  She gestured. “That’s the place. Big white barn, old yellow house—and okay, really big brown dog.”

  “You should be able to handle a dog.”

  “Never met one I couldn’t. And I’ll handle Liam and the deal.”

  Doyle pulled into the long gravel drive where the house was set well back, and the barn farther back still. The dog let out a series of deep, throaty warning barks, but Riley climbed out, gave the dog a long look as it stiff-legged toward her.

  “Knock it off, big boy.”

  “Sure he only takes small bites.” The man who stepped out of the barn wore a tweed cap over tufts of steel-gray hair, and a baggy cardigan and jeans over a bone-thin frame. He grinned, hands on his narrow hips, obviously amused.

  Riley opted to set the tone, grinned back, then gestured to the dog. “Come on and have a sniff, pal.”

  The dog’s tail wagged, two slow tick-tocks. He stepped to her, sniffed her legs, her orange Chucks, then licked the hand she held at her side.

  “Well now.” Liam strolled forward. “That’s a new one altogether. While it’s true enough he won’t take those bites unless I tell him, he isn’t one to make friends with strangers.”

  “Dogs like me.” Now that they’d settled the matter, Riley leaned over, gave the dog a quick, rough stroking. “What’s his name?”

  “He’s our Rory. And who’s your guard dog this fine afternoon?”

  “This is Doyle, part of my team.” She offered Liam a hand.

  “It’s good to meet you, Dr. Riley Gwin, who our friend Sean says is as smart and quick as they come. And you, Doyle . . .” He let it hang as he offered Doyle his hand.

  “McCleary.”

  “McCleary, is it? My mother, she married a James McCleary, and lost him in the Second Great War. He left her a widow and a babe in her belly—and that would be me brother Jimmy. She married my own father some three years later, but we’ve McCleary relations. Do you have people here, Doyle McCleary?”

  “Possibly.”

  He pointed a long, bony finger. “I can hear some of the Clare under the Yank. And you, the famous Dr. Gwin.”

  “A mongrel, like Rory, but with some of the roots in Galway and Kerry.”

  “Mongrels, I find, are the smartest and most adaptable. And how long do you plan to be staying in Ireland?”

  As she knew the country need for conversation, Riley stood hipshot and relaxed with the dog leaning companionably against her leg. “Hard to say, but we’re enjoying the time. We’re on the coast, staying with a friend. Bran Killian.”

  Liam’s eyebrows shot up. “Friends with the Killian, are you? An interesting lad—a magician, it seems. Rumors abound.”

  “I’m sure he enjoys that.”

  “Quite the place he has on the cliff, I’m told, and built on what was, long ago, McCleary land. Are you connected there, Doyle?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Doyle’s not as keen on digging up the origins as I am,” Riley said easily. “You’re an O’Dea, an old name, and a prominent one. It’s likely your father’s people lived in Clare, maybe in the villages that carried your name. Dysert O’Dea, Tully O’Dea. The old name was O’Deaghaidh, and means searcher, likely a nod to your clan’s holy men. You lost a lot of land in the rebellions of the seventeenth century.”

  “Sure Sean said you were quite the scholar.” Liam’s faded blue eyes danced with amusement. “My mother was born Agnes Kennedy.”

  Okay, she thought, I’ll play. “Kennedy’s Anglicized from the nickname Cinnéide or Cinneidigh. Cinn, meaning head, eide translates to grim or to helmeted. Cinnéide was nephew to the High-King Brian Boru. There’s a record of O Cinnéide, Lord of Tipperary, in the Annals of the Four Masters, twelfth century.”

  She smiled. “You come from prominent stock, Liam.”

  He laughed. “And you’ve an impressive brain in your head, Dr. Riley Gwin. Well now, I expect you want to do some business, so we’ll go into the barn and see what we have for you.”

  The barn smelled of hay, as a barn should. It held tools and equipment, a skinny, ancient tractor, a couple of stalls. A refrigerator that had surely been plugged in the first time in the 1950s—and, Riley imagined, held beer and snacks.

  In the back, the sloping concrete floor led to a small, orderly arsenal. Rifles, shotguns, handguns stood in two large gun safes. Ammunition, and plenty of it, stacked on metal shelves. A long workbench held the tools for making shotgun shells.

  “Make your own?”

  Liam smiled at Riley. “A hobby of mine. This would be your interest today.” He took a Ruger out of the safe, started to pass it to Doyle. Riley intercepted.

  She checked its load—empty—tested its weight, aimed it toward the side wall.

  “Not to speak out of turn,” Liam said, “but that’s a lot of gun there for a woman of your size.”

  “There was a drunk in a bar in Mozambique who thought I was too small to object when he put his hands where I didn’t want them.” She lowered the gun, offered it to Doyle. “He and his broken arm found out differently. Can I see the other?”

  “Mozambique,” Liam said, chuckling, then passed her the second rifle.

&n
bsp; “I haven’t shot this model before. I’d like to test it.”

  “You’d be a fool if you didn’t.” Liam took two mags from the shelf. “Out the back, if you don’t mind.” He offered ear protectors. “The wife’s doing some baking in the kitchen. Just let me give her a text so she knows what we’re about.”

  They went out the rear of the barn where the land gave way to fields and stone fences, and a pair of chestnut horses grazing on the green.

  “They’re beauties,” Riley said.

  “My pride and my joy. Not to worry, as they’re used to the noise, as is our Rory here. I like to shoot some skeet out here, and kill some paper targets as well.”

  He gestured to fresh circle targets pinned to wooden planks, backed by thick stacks of hay.

  “These have a good long range as you know, but as you’re not familiar with the gun itself, you may want to move closer.”

  “This is close enough.” About fifty yards, she judged, and when it came to the real purpose, she’d want to shoot true a great deal farther. But this would do.

  She slapped the mag in place, lifted the weapon, took her stance, sighted. She’d expected the kick, and the rifle didn’t disappoint.

  She missed the bull’s-eye, but by no more than an inch.

  “Well done,” Liam said, pleased surprise in the tone.

  Riley adjusted, fired again, hit the center. “Better,” she murmured, and shot a more than respectable grouping of five.

  “It’s quick,” she decided. “I like the hand grip, the trigger pressure. It’s got good balance, and doesn’t weigh me down.” She glanced at Doyle. “Your turn.”

  He did as Riley did, loaded the second rifle, set, fired. Caught the outside of the first white ring, plugged one inside it, managed a decent grouping if not as tight or accurate as hers.

  “It’ll do.” Doyle ejected the mag.

  “Well now, since you’re making it so easy, I’ll throw in cases for them. Anything else I can show you for your . . . tournament?”

  “These do the trick—along with the ammo we discussed.”

  “Some tournament you’re having.” But Liam left it at that, and the deal was struck.

  They loaded the guns in their canvas cases, the ammo, in the back of Bran’s car, covered it all with a blanket before saying their good-byes to Liam and the dog.

  Riley kicked back in her seat. “You’re a decent shot with a long gun, but you pull a hair to the left.”

  Since he knew she was right, he didn’t respond. “Did you pull that data about his name, his mother’s name out of your ass?”

  “Out of my brain,” she corrected. “You can look it up. I did refresh myself with his surname before we headed out—in case. Kennedy? That’s an easy one. Mostly, if I read something, study something, I remember it. Or enough of it. It’s interesting, isn’t it, he has McCleary relations, and given the location, it’s more than likely they cross with yours.”

  “Just a coincidence.”

  “You may want to believe that, but you’ve lived too long to believe it. Too many crosses with you here, McCleary. The land, the site of the house, the most direct connection with Arianrhod. Our prophet finds the Fire Star, our siren the Water Star. You’re a sword-wielding warrior, pal. My money’s on you for the ice. And if Nerezza makes the same connections, she’ll come at you the hardest.”