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“This has officially gone too far. I saw the pictures and read the reports from the MacCrory place and it’s very clear that you’re in danger, Nox.”
“What do you want me to do, Clance? Hide in my pajamas while monsters kidnap and murder innocent girls and old witches?” he asked, earning a wry snort from Clancy.
“Maybe. I want those monsters found but I’m not willing to sacrifice you to catch them.”
“Why not?” Nox asked, utterly serious. “Better me than someone like Elsa or Mila or Alice or Rachel or Tanya or—”
Clancy stopped him with a heavy sigh. “I haven’t forgotten about them. I’m just asking you to take a step back, for your own safety.”
“Imagine if it had been one of your girls!” Nox urged, keeping his voice down so he wouldn’t disturb Nelson. “That’s how it feels to me. Like I already knew them and loved them and I miss who they were before those monsters took them.”
“Stop!” Clancy’s hand was shaking as he held Nox off. “I would happily give my own life if it would erase all of this. But the price is already too high. It’s gone too far and you are in danger! I saw what they brought back from New Castle. I know what that was,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, hard growl. His rage was practically palpable and Nox suspected that was half the reason Clancy had come. He would be scared for Nox, but he would want answers and someone to blame for the attack.
“It was a cheap trick, is what it was,” Nox said and attempted a dismissive wave but Clancy caught his wrist.
“A cheap trick? Lucas gave your mother that locket the morning you were born. I saved that lock of hair after Sorcha1 gave you your first haircut and I was there when Lucas took that picture of you. It was one of the happiest days of his life and we were so proud of you.” Tears pooled in Clancy’s eyes and Nox could feel his bitter, bitter grief and loneliness. He would never get over the loss of his best friends, especially Nox’s father. “I swore I would protect you and I’m failing.”
“No, you’re not,” Nox said as he pulled Clancy into a tight embrace. “I…took a hit yesterday, but I’m fine now.”
“Nox!” Clancy leaned back, his gaze hard and his nostrils flaring. “How. Did. They. Get. Them?” He punctuated every word with a firm slap to Nox’s cheek. “You have good security and that boggart is supposed to be keeping an eye on this place as well, is he not?”
There. He always found a way to make it Merlin’s fault. “I know what you’re saying, but leave Merlin out of this.”
“Leave Merlin—?” Clancy threw his hands up. “I’d start with Merlin!”
“He probably saved my life last night,” Nox argued and pointed at the bandage on his forearm. “Why would he go to the trouble if he was in on it?” he challenged.
“Maybe you should ask him,” Clancy snapped back, making Nox laugh.
“Ask him if he sold me out to Julian and the MacCrorys?”
Clancy clutched his forehead in distress, muttering curses under his breath. “To hell with Julian and the MacCrorys. Has it occurred to you that they are…minor in the grand scheme of things? That something far more important might be at stake,” he suggested, but Nox was appalled at the thought.
“A girl died and Alice may never leave the hospital,” he said in a furious whisper. “Those girls’ lives have been shattered and they may never be whole again.”
“I know!” Clancy pressed his hands together. “I beg for peace for those poor souls. And we will get them justice,” he vowed.
“Will we?” Nox asked. “Will Lonnie MacCrory face justice?”
Clancy’s cheeks puffed out and he widened his eyes suggestively. “I had a look at Bixby’s preliminary report and that wasn’t a fast death.”
Nox blinked at Clancy, not sure how to respond. Details from the MacCrorys’ kitchen and Lonnie’s body popped like a camera’s flash, drawing him back to the trailer. He could smell trash and her rotting corpse as he crouched over the puddle in the kitchen. “It wasn’t the dog’s urine on the floor,” he said to himself.
“Is leir don saol e an firinne,”2 Clancy replied, not missing a beat.
“An mor ata air?”3 Nox demanded, then jerked away when he realized what he had said and avoided Clancy’s suspicious glare.
“Do you do that often? Leave and switch to Gaelic,” he asked.
Nox shook his head and waved it off. “It’s a new thing I’m trying. It helps me think.”
“I bet it does.” Clancy swore under his breath as he cupped the back of Nox’s head and pulled him close again. “You don’t have to face this alone.”
“I’m not facing anything, Clance. I’m doing what we’ve always done and I’m getting back to work.” He clapped Clancy on the shoulder, then turned him toward the door. “After I wake up Nelson and feed him.”
“I swear, you’re the best of Lucas and the worst of Sorcha,” Clancy said wearily, but he was smiling as he leaned against the door. “And I’m glad of it at times like this. You’ll go to the devil in your own way and make him sorry he ever set eyes on you.”
“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”
