Tír na nÓg Trilogy, Book III: Tír na nÓg

Almost Ripe

The psychic screamed bloody murder; Cathbad produced a ball of light that hovered just above his palm and emitted enough whitish-bluish glow to see by. Tess's face was a mask of fear; she, too, remembered being in that gymnasium when Dark arrived. But Emery was not afraid, nor was Cullen, who drew his sword. It'd been the Sword of Light that had banished Dark the last time, and Cullen surely intended to use the same tactic again.

"No," Emery ordered him. "Put it away. I know what to do."

"Emery--"

"Listen to me, all right? I just know!"

The psychic audibly gulped. "Ex-excuse me--b-but can you p-please remove this?" she pointed a finger at the dagger propped under her chin.

Emery turned to her. "No. Not until you tell me what I need to know."

"I told you--"

"Don't try it! I see it in you . . . I feel it! It knows its kind, right? Well, I've got it, too, you fraud."

Tess called her friend's name. "We should get out of here, get away from this place if we can!"

"Lady, Tess is right. This space is too small for my Lord to properly wield his sword! Should the Brothers arrive—"

"Oh shut up! Everyone just shut up!" Emery's frustration was rising. Why were Cathbad and Tess even there? They were a nuisance. "You all go on. I'll do this myself."

Cullen did not put his sword away, but Cathbad was right: he'd have a lot of trouble swinging it in the small rooms of the shop. Instead, the warrior looked at Emery with much concern but, saying nothing of his worry, said firmly, "Do what you think you must."

The psychic wasn't fond of his response, as her rolling eyes revealed, but Emery was gratified and was about to demand something when the woman beat her to it, conceding, "All right! It's true! I know where you can find them . . . because I am them."

The silence that followed was deafening. Cathbad's light held everything in a cold still-life, edging features and objects with frost. It was so quiet the only sound was the crackle of his sphere.

Emery slowly withdrew her dagger and stared at the woman in front of her, who looked for all the world like a grinning clown just popped out of a jack-in-the-box. "What do you mean?"

Practically a different person, the psychic had eyes for Emery alone, and it was as if the two of them were wrapped in their own bubble. "As you said, we know our own. We are everywhere. You can't hide from us! Did you think you could come here in secret? But it matters not whether you go to them or they come for you . . . the result is the same."

White hot rage trembled within Emery's breast; she was unsure she could contain it. "If the result is the same," she hissed, "then why can't you tell me where they are?"

The woman showed her teeth. "Where's the fun in that?"

Emery couldn't take that mocking face anymore. Little Fury still in her fist, she brought the dagger up and jammed it through the woman's chin, behind her eyes, up into her brain, just as she'd promised. There were cries behind her, gasps, but Emery knew what they didn't, what they realized only when the woman, pinned on the dagger, began to laugh maniacally.

"Move aside, Emery," Cullen growled, and the girl obliged, sliding her dagger form the woman's head just in time for him to take it off with Claíomh Solais. The psychic's body slumped to the ground; her head rolled under the table. Cullen and Emery exchanged a laden glance, then turned to the other two, who stood aghast yet immediately tried to hide their shock by looking everywhere at the walls and floor.