A Terrible Beauty

house in Boston had long since been demolished and there was no way of finding the magical place where he had buried the bones. But there you were, like an angel from heaven, if there were angels, and if there was a heaven. There you were, talking to me on my television, showing me the very place where Mor-Rioghain could be summoned, and telling me how many more women I would have to sacrifice to summon her.'

'You're sick. You're totally deranged.'

'Well, hah, I'd agree with you, if Mor-Rioghain didn't exist. But when Jack Callwood was Jan Rufenwald, in Germany, he managed to summon Morgana three times, so he said, and each time she gave him wealth, and property, and the company of some of Germany's most desirable women. I first found out about him when I was seventeen years old, and ever since then I'veknownthat I would summon Mor-Rioghain myself one day, and today's the day.'

'So what do you want from Mor-Rioghain? Don't tell me you cut up those poor girls just for money, or houses, or men.'

Lucy stopped pacing and stared at Katie and Katie had never seen an expression like that on anybody's face, man or woman, ever. She was alight with triumph.

'Mor-Rioghain will give me myself. That's something that I've never had. Mor- Rioghain will give meme.'

Katie smeared the rain away from her eyes with the back of her hand. She didn't understand this at all, but she knew that she had to think of a way of getting them away from here. Even though it was raining so hard, the smell around Siobhan Buckley's body was sickening, a metallic mixture of blood and peat and feces, and the proximity of actual grisly death made Katie feel even more afraid.

'Take off your clothes,' Lucy ordered her. 'You have to be ready for the sacrifice.'

'No, I won't,' said Katie.

Lucy came back around the bloody remains and held the boning knife up to Katie's face. 'Take off your clothes or so help me I'll stick this in your eyes.'

Katie unbuttoned her sodden green blouse, and peeled it off. Lucy stayed where she was, very close to her, the gun held high, the knife pointing directly at Katie's face. It suddenly occurred to Katie that Lucy must have always carried this knife. How else had she managed to cut so deftly through Katie's seat belt when her car was sinking in the Lee?

She took off her skirt and stepped out of it. 'Underwear now,' Lucy insisted. Katie hesitated but Lucy prodded the knife at her. She unfastened her bra and then pulled down her Marks & Spencer panties. The rain ran down her naked back and gave her goose bumps all over.

'Kneel,' said Lucy.

'If you so much as lay one finger on me-' Katie began, but Lucy screamed, 'Kneel!'and so she knelt, her knees sinking into the mud.

Lucy took a black scarf out of her coat pocket and handed it to John. 'What do you want me to do with this?' he asked her, his voice sounding tight and terrified.

'Blindfold her, tightly, so that she can't see anything at all. Even Mor-Rioghain's living sacrifice is not allowed to set eyes on the great one when she appears.'

John did as he was told. Then Lucy gave him a length of nylon cord and said, 'Tie her hands behind her back.'

'I'm not too good with knots.'

'Just tie her, will you?'

It took John a few fumbling minutes before he was able to fasten Katie's wrists. All the time he kept mumbling under his breath, 'I'm sorry, Katie, I'm sorry. I'm so damned sorry.'

When he had finished, Lucy said, 'Step away. This is the time for the summoning to begin.'

It had grown even darker than ever, and the rain was drifting across the field from Iollan's Wood like the winding sheets that the bean-nighe washes. John took one step back, and then another. 'Turn around,' Lucy told him, and so he did. With three quick paces she approached him from behind, put her right arm around him, and sliced the boning knife across his Adam's apple.

55

Jimmy O'Rourke turned to the last few pages of Gerard's notebook. Outside he and Patrick O'Sullivan could hear police and ambulance sirens approaching from the Western Road. Patrick took out a cigarette, too, and lit it, and took a look around. 'Wasn't too tidy, was he? Look at the state of this place. Dirty dinner plate under the couch.'

'He was an academic, Patrick. Very learned fellow. Academics aren't interested in dirty dinner plates.'

Patrick picked up a heap of Examiners and found a dogeared copy of Playboy. 'Interested in dirty books, though, I'd say.'

'Can't fault the chap's research, though. This is going to cause one hell of a bloody great political row, I can tell you. Wouldn't be surprised if it starts a war.'

'I thought you weren't bothered with all of this guff.'

'Well, I am now, boy. There could be some promotion in this.'

He finished reading the final few paragraphs of Colonel Corcoran's diary, and then he came to some slanted, hastily scribbled notes which Gerard had written at the very end. 'Had reply to my E-mail to UC Berkeley re: Prof. Quinn's research papers!! She published her first study,Celtic Legends, in 1962!! Odd!!'

Jimmy put down the notebook and frowned. 'He says here that Professor Quinn published her first paper in1962. Nineteen sixty-two? That would make her at least sixty-five years old, wouldn't it?'

'I thought you checked her out yourself.'