Gabi walked away and Zulu stared at the men around him.
“Dad, she’ll be okay,” said Wade. “We won’t let anything hurt Mom, you know that.”
“I know that, son, but sometimes there are things we can’t fight. Hidden evil, spirits, ghosts, gremlins, whatever the fuck they are, sometimes we can’t fight them. What if this is one of those cases?”
“Zulu, brother, we’ve never not been able to catch the bad guy. Even one that was already dead. We’ll get this one too. Trust your wife and trust us.”
Zulu nodded and rose to walk to the back with his wife. Tiger stared at the others, then at his brother.
“If something happens to her, who is going to control him?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
1682 – New Year’s Day – Dublin, Ireland
“This city is too much for me,” said John O’Shan. “I think I’m too old to be in a city like this any longer. I’m ready to go home.”
“Yes, sir. Some of the men are at the fair. Do you wish to go? Perhaps some enjoyment will cheer you up?” said his guard.
“Nothing will cheer me, Willem.”
“You look tired, sir. I can take you back to our lodgings,” said the devoted man. “Did the healers or doctors give you any hope?”
“None,” he said shaking his head. “They do not know what plagues me other than a disease of the blood. I have no clue what that means. Come. We’ll gather the men from the fair.”
The fair was lively and full of sights and smells that would make a younger man giddy with excitement. Dancers, barely covered with bells around their waists shimmied in the crowds of people. Men danced on tall walking sticks, balancing with perfection as they worked their way through the muddy lawns.
On the other side of the road a pen filled with strange, wondrous animals traipsed around. There were elephants and giraffes. Things called zebras, striped black and white animals resembling a donkey.
“Perhaps they’re painted that way,” said his guard.
“I don’t think so,” said O’Shan.
He was tired. Exhausted and he’d done next to nothing today. He used to be the biggest, strongest man on the western side of Ireland. People came to him for advice and counsel and he always gave it.
In spite of is advanced age of fifty-one, he had no wife, no children, siblings. He was born an only child and never found a woman that he could tolerate for longer than an hour. He wanted no bastards running around his keep.
“There are the men,” said his guard. O’Shan looked at the stage, an odd-looking priest performing magical tricks that seemed unholy for a holy man. He scanned the audience and called one woman’s name.
“You madam. You have suffered in your lifetime,” he said. From somewhere in the audience a drunken man yelled out.
“We’ve all suffered you eedjit! This is Ireland for feck’s sake!” The crowd laughed but the man did not divert his eyes from the woman. She wiped tears and nodded.
“You’ve lost your husband, your child.”
She nodded, tears coming heavier now. A few in the audience gasped, reaching to comfort the woman.
He stepped down from the makeshift stage and walked toward her. He reached out a long, boney hand and grasped hers. She seemed to shrink from him, then stood as he pulled her close. O’Shan watched as the priest whispered something in her ear.
She pulled back staring up at the priest and then nodded, making the sign of the cross. Grabbing her burlap sack she walked through the crowd staring at faces until she was face-to-face with the man that had taunted them earlier.
“I’m not ‘yer dead husband, lass. Move on,” he laughed.
But the crowd didn’t laugh with him this time. She lifted her arm and swung down, a blade no one had seen suddenly in her hand. She sliced open his chest and turned to the crowd.
“A life for a life. He killed me husband!”
“Sir, we can go,” said the guard.
