But Maureen was closer. He'd never make it to the hotel. He'd collapse and freeze, if Fiona didn't get there first.
Brian grabbed his thoughts by the scruff of the neck and hauled them back. A wandering brain was one of the fastest ways to die. Where was he?
Fifth and Congress. Well, the thoughts had moved him three blocks further. Apparently, his feet had decided on Maureen's. The hotel was in the other direction. He was committed now, no choice.
Four more blocks. Uphill. And then the stairs. Maureen had that buggering third-floor flat. Stiff leg. Working leg. Stiff leg. Working leg. A journey of ten thousand Li begins with a single step. What the hell is a Li, anyway?
Rough bone-edges grated against each other with each step, each gasping breath, shooting fire deep into his side from the broken ribs. Warmth oozed down his arm and dripped into the snow, onto his shoes, his pants. Each slip on the icy sidewalk drove ice-picks into his leg and shoulder.
Ten steps of each leg and he leaned on a streetlight. Headlights glinted down the road. He assumed it was the local constable keeping the world safe for democracy, so he straightened up and forced a semblance of a taxpayer out on his lawful business.
Stiff leg. Working leg. Stiff leg. Working leg. A Li was a unit of measurement in the ancient Chinese system, length unknown to the current correspondent but probably less than a mile. Irrelevant. Call it a bloody long distance, anyway.
How far had he come?
Not bleeding far enough. A block of flats loomed ahead, it looked right but no parking lot. One beyond, instead. Rusty-bummed green Toyota.
Stiff leg. Working leg. What would he do if she wasn't home? What if she looked through that damned security peephole and told him to bugger off? She didn't love him. She'd made it bloody clear she didn't even bleeding like him.
Stairs. He'd thought those buggering Yanks had buggering handicap accessibility laws. Wheelchair access, ramps or lifts, all that sort of bloody socialist muggery. One sodding step at a time leaning on the railing hoping it didn't break under his weight.
Stiff leg. Working leg. Stiff leg. Working leg.
Third floor. He flopped against the wall, right side, no blood-smear on paint. He tried to keep it clean, maintain decorum. Gather breath. Focus. Prayer optional.
Buzzer. He couldn't reach the bloody button. Neither hand.
Elbow. Right elbow. He mushed around with his jacket sleeve until the point of the elbow brushed the button.
He heard a distant ringing.
Nothing happened. He tried again, three tries before contact.
Nothing.
It seemed easiest just to lean against the button, continuous noise, barely holding his body up against the doorframe.
He heard a muttered voice, inside, with the tone of swearing but no words. The door opened.
"Maureen . . ."
It was more of a groan than a word.
She just stood there with that damned gun in a firm two-handed grip, centered on his chest. He couldn't tell if her expression was shock or hatred.
"Don't . . . call . . . police."
The barrel expanded into a tunnel and swallowed him.
Chapter Nine
They met by the peace-fire in the Great Hall of Tara: Dougal, Sean, Fiona. Afternoon sun shone through the smoke-hole in the thatch high overhead, burning a single shaft down through the blue smoke and glancing off the massive roof-trusses. It barely lit the gloom: the dark stone walls, the smoke-blackened wooden beams and purlins, the dusty banners. A twin line of polished shadows marched from one end of the hall to the other, oak-trunk columns like sentries rooted in the flagstone floor.
No torches were lit for only three, no tables set out on their trestles groaning with roast boar and bread and cheese and wine--no bards, no Druids, no hopeful dogs underfoot. Peace and darkness ruled. Dark for dark deeds, thought Fiona, with her usual touch of inner mockery.
Red firelight washed their faces. They sat close to the central fire-pit where the flames just balanced the cool darkness, no more than the few logs needed to hold coals through the day. The peace-fire burned from one Beltane to the next, to die with the old year's night and rekindle from the sun's first rays through a burning lens. The laws of the Summer Country said matches would not work. Butane lighters would, simply flint and steel and flammable gas, but the sun made a more impressive ritual.
Well, Fiona thought, this is what the Great Hall of Tara ought to have looked like, anyway. It's our vision of a regal barn huge enough to feast a thousand warriors of the Fianna at one time.
A dozen fire-pits stretched from one end to the other, all but one dark now and waiting for the great blazes that would magically drive the damp and chill from stone masonry without devilling her eyes and nose with smoke along the way. Instead, a wholesome smell of fresh rushes rose from underfoot, untainted by the dog-turds, sour beer, and rancid table-scraps historical accuracy would demand. It was a much grander, cleaner space than the cramped slum that human archaeologists had dug up in Ireland.
A neutral space to meet, that's what it really was. A DMZ, to use dear Brian's idiom. Few in the Summer Country felt the trust necessary to either give or accept an invitation to another's keep. If three Old Ones came to Tara and only two were seen to leave, the rest of the Summer Country would move against those two. Because of this, what went on inside the Great Hall remained safe and secret.
Dougal poked at the coals with his knife, probably some esoteric kindjal or hand-seax or hamidashi she ought to recognize and praise. Dougal played at being an Authority on arms and armor, just as he played at being a Huntsman of all kinds of beast. The rising glow of the coals lit the hawk he carried,
