Hunted: The World of the Changelings Read online

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  I stared at the high-walled nooks filled with laughing men, and at the smoke-darkened beams which spanned the width of the low-ceilinged room. It was deceptively large, this cosy pub.

  Cosy – and more to my style. The draught may have changed some, and the method of delivery, but a fire flickered merrily along one wall and men still gathered over drink to tell tales. Here I could be at home.

  Here I could fulfil Pat’s command to unearth the double-agent who plagued 8 Group.

  Pat ordered our supper and lagers with a shake of his head after I stared helplessly when asked what I’d like. Until Pat had wrangled my release, I’d been prisoner to the victuals deemed healthy by the good matron of Queen Mary’s Hospital.

  As we ate, Jamie attempted to play spymaster himself. He peppered me with questions about the man I was supposed to be, despite Pat’s rolling eyes, and I deflected by asking him about his family – about both their families.

  “Well, the girls share a cottage just outside Carrickahowley – easier with the two babes. Jamie’s aunt has been after them to come back to Scotland, of course, but Kathy’s mam is ailing. She’s not going to last the summer, and she wants to be on hand.”

  I nodded – the names meant nothing to me but Pat’s eyes were shining bright in the pub’s muted glow.

  “Maureen’s a bit of a terror – running already when she should just barely be crawling, her mother says.”

  “She devils my boy something terrible,” Jamie added with a shake of his head at his friend. “But Sean’s devoted to her – or so Mary says.”

  I grinned and let their chatter wash over me. The big offensive at the end of the month was their last for this tour, and every ounce of me wanted to find the mole and let them go home – these men who still had a home to go to.

  “Speaking of Aunt Margaret – Corporal, do you know Edward McAlister of Dunn Ussie? I went to nursery school with his son, Colin, back in Dingwall – are they relations to you?”

  I choked on the hunk of bread and cheese I’d stuffed in my mouth. They still called the keep Dunn Ussie? After all this time? And if Jamie had gone to school with a child of that clan, could he be—?

  Pat clapped me on the back and I took a steadying breath.

  “Distantly, sir – I believe? The names certainly feel familiar.”

  Jamie laughed. “See Pat – told you I could surprise him. You’re a good one, Corporal. Welcome to the team.”

  Four

  “You’re telling me the Germans just let them go?” Pat sounded like he didn’t believe a word Jamie was saying.

  Jamie shrugged. “That’s the news coming over the wire.”

  “Something isn’t right.”

  Dubh looked between the two men, hunkered over their lagers. Thick smoke filtered the pub’s weak light, and cast shadows over its patrons. One of the newly-arrived American pilots was complaining bitterly about it as he waved a bulky contraption he called a camera.

  “What do you think, Doyle?”

  “Pardon?”

  “About the trade - have you not been listening, man? What is it – is Delia over there giving you the eye again?” Jamie asked with a wink.

  I snorted. If Delia was giving anyone the eye, it was Jamie – not that the pilot would notice. He’d shown off the pictures of his lovely wife and son so many times they’d worn thin with wear. It didn’t stop some of the younger Women’s Auxiliary cadets, or nurses, from swooning over his rakish smile.

  Pat rolled his eyes. “He’s been listening, Jamie – he listens to everything. Did you know, according to our good Corporal McAlister, Johnny Hardwick snitches five paperclips a week from the supply office. And while that may seem sinister, it seems he’s building a replica of London Bridge.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Indeed,” I snorted. “And as you can see, Hardwick’s paperclip ode to British engineering has no bearing on your mole. You need someone in Germany, not Castle Hill House.”

  “Are you volunteering?”

  I hesitated, but only for a second. “Yes.”

  There was nowhere else for me to go – the lands of Faerie were closed. I had tried to call the mists, to access the places where the veil between worlds was thin, to no avail.

  The world was at war, and if going to Germany would help, then so be it.

  Pat stared at me.

  “Have you any German, then?”

  "Mein Deutsch ist sehr gut. Außerdem bin ich begabt, wie Sie gesagt haben, mich gut einzumischen."

  Jamie burst out laughing and I gave him a droll stare.

  “I know it is not that simple.” I kept my voice low but emotion crept into it anyway. “Yet, if by donning the armour of the enemy I help keep more of our boys safe to come home to wives and sweethearts such as Mary, I am more than willing to do it.”

  Pat put a hand on my shoulder. I had only spent a month with these men, yet through their stories of home – of their infant children, their wives and boyhood exploits – I had come to love them as much as I had loved any brother-in-arms before. They were ten years my junior, but in every way, they were my superior. They had lives for which to fight – and I would do what I could to ensure they could go back to those lives.

  “We’ll talk about it after the run tomorrow night.”

  “Then again, the war might be over after our run tomorrow night.”

  Pat shook his head. “As much as I wish it so.”

  His voice trailed off and he slipped a bit of paper from his pocket. It was a letter to his daughter. He wrote a new one each week.

  He stared at the words scribbled on the page end then back at me. “You’re certain?”

  “What is the point of a man with no memory hiding away, safe in the country while everyone else runs pell-mell into the enemy? I’ve told you – beyond your everyday rivalries and daydreamers hoping for home, there is nothing amiss here. My gut tells me my place is there.”

  “And is your gut often wrong?” Jamie asked around a mouthful of lager.

  I grinned. “In recent memory, I cannot say – yet I suspect it has rarely failed me.”

  “Then tell us, oh great magician who can see into men’s hearts, what is our fate on the morrow?”

  I stared into the dark blue eyes before me. Patrick made noises for Jamie to leave off but I wasn’t listening to either of them.

  Static filled my ears and tiny flashes like miniscule bursts of lightening etched jagged lines before my eyes.

  “Dubh – Dubh!”

  I shook my head, but it would not clear. The noise of the pub had ceased. Jamie and Pat, their hands wrapped around their pints, were still.

  “Dubh Súile mac Alasdair!”

  “Niamh Golden Hair.”

  I spoke her name out loud without fear. The magic of Tír na nÓg had stopped time.

  “Thank the gods we have found you – what possessed you?”

  “Possessed me? Dear lady, I feared perhaps it was your magic which had done this to me – in retribution for my failure to harken to your cause.”

  “You are a fool, Dubh Súile, if that is what you think.”

  “I have been called worse by you, my lady.”

  “Do not bandy words with me, Druid. You were exiled, as well you know, and not by me. I have found a way to bring you back.”

  I tried to keep the incredulity out of my voice and failed. “Bring me back? For a price, I’ll wager?”

  “Do you still hold onto your foolish notion that Nuada’s ways are just? That he has not changed and sullied the magic, which was his duty to protect?” Her disgust with her king and father, Nuada Silver Arm, was almost palpable. “He sent you there to die.”

  “And I shall make the best use of the time I have here. These men need me more than you do, Niamh.”

  “Those men’s lives will be nothing if Tír na nÓg falls to him.”

  “You speak of things you do not know. They know nothing of you or your kin – their lives have meaning all their ow
n.”

  I thought I heard her snort, and I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. I had missed our banter.

  “So, you will not return?”

  “Not until I have ensured their safety.”

  “I cannot keep they gateway open forever, Dubh Súile.”

  “Certainly, a day will not matter to you, Niamh Golden Hair.”

  She laughed outright. “A year then, for you? I will see what I can do. If he suspects anything, I will have to close it, and you will be trapped there.”

  “Perhaps it is as it should be – perhaps I should grow old and die, as is the fate of all mortal men.”

  Niamh paused for a moment; when she spoke again, her voice was barely a whisper.

  “Not your fate, Master Druid – not yet. We have need of you.”

  The murmur of premonition crawled along my skin, and I shuddered.

  “Good day to you, Master Druid. Should you have need of me, summon the mists. I will be watching.”

  The noise of the pub came rushing back, drowning my senses in a heady wave of clanking glasses and the scrape of wood on wood. I gritted his teeth. Jamie and Patrick were looking at me, expectant smiles on their faces.

  “Well, what is it man? What is our fate?”

  “Ah, I do not deal in men’s fate – yet for you I see a great legacy. Your children will grow to do good things in your name.”

  “Well, that’s all a man can ask for, I suppose.” Pat grinned and went back to his letter while Jamie sauntered up to the bar to order another round.

  I watched the two men and wondered why my own words sat heavy in my heart.

  Five

  Despite that I was Sergeant O’Malley’s aide, I did not have the clearance to stay in the radio control room while my friends flew over Nuremberg. Of course, they could not stop me from camping outside the door and chatting up anyone who would stop.

  The news was not good. The Germans had been ready for the raids. As the night wore on, and more planes went down, and more names I knew were whispered as missing or dead, my dread deepened.

  They would make it, though – they always had before. Four tours. It was unheard of. They were blessed by the angles, as some of the other pilots said.

  I kept telling myself that, but as men trickled in with tales of German lights making targets of their planes, of the Luftwaffe hounding their every move, my heart clenched around the knowledge that Pat and Jamie’s blessings may have run out. Neither angels, nor the gods themselves could keep them from the fate of all men, it seemed.

  But I had defied fate, part of me reasoned as dawn broke. I had not allowed time to march on, nor the hand of death to take me. If I could do it, so too could they - these men who were better than me by far.

  But even my blindness to reality could not change facts. The sun was nearing its apex. No one had returned in over an hour. Anyone still out there would have been out of fuel by now, and forced to land – if they could even manage it – in enemy territory.

  I gritted my teeth and took myself to Vice Air-Marshal Bennet. To my surprise, his aide announced me straight away.

  “I was wondering when I would see you, Corporal McAlister,” Bennet said as he waved my salute away. “Sit. I have news.”

  Bennet took a deep breath and even though I wanted to protest – wanted to deny the words I could see in the other man’s eyes – I did as I was told.

  “Sir, may I ask if there has been news of—”

  “You know what’s happened, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “I was waiting for a confirmation report, but I can say with some confidence that Sergeants O’Malley and McAndrew were shot down. They’re dead. I’m sorry, Corporal. I know O’Malley was responsible for your post here. He thought quite highly of you.”

  I had no words to defend myself against the sudden emptiness which opened in my chest. My hand slid to my heart.

  I had lost comrades in war. I watched my father’s murder. I had lived through more battles than I cared to remember, but it did not make their passing any easier.

  Pat’s letter to his infant daughter crinkled in my chest pocket. He hadn’t the chance to mail it and had asked me to keep it safe until he returned.

  “Are you sending anything home, to their families, sir?”

  “The telegrams have already been sent to Home Office. Someone will deliver the news to their wives later today.”

  My face flushed and I welcomed the anger - welcomed the ability to speak without thinking.

  “Sir, forgive me, but how can you just—just dismiss them? Telegrams? They deserved better.”

  Bennet sighed and rested his hands on the papers which littered his desk. I had no business speaking to him like this, but I didn't care. It was the truth. They had deserved better.

  “You have to understand something, Corporal. Their wives are in Ireland – things being what they are there, Pat is a traitor." Bennet ground out the last few words and two bright splotches of red had appeared on his cheeks. "Us showing up and giving them honours will only make things more difficult for Kathy and Mary."

  He took a breath and flexed his hands which had turned to fists. The man was angry - furious even - but not with me.

  Pat had explained – Ireland was neutral, to a point. Those who had enlisted in the Irish Army and left to join the British in the war were now traitors. While Pat had never been a member of the Irish Army, but many would – and did – see his wartime activities as an act of treason.

  “The girls were stationed with the Women's Auxiliary back in ’40. They met here, you understand? I gave them leave so they could marry. If Kathy and Mary were smart, they would go to Cloak Tower. There at least, they'd have a place, and I know Jamie’s aunt has been asking for them. But I also know they won’t go. Ireland is their home, and the girls are stubborn – and brave. Always have been.”

  He looked me straight in the eye. “Let’s not make this worse for them.”

  I straightened and nodded. “No, sir. I understand.”

  “I knew you would. Can I count on you, too, to continue the Sergeant’s plan to infiltrate the German line?”

  “Sir?” The sound of our plans – made only the night before – on Bennet’s lips made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

  “Sergeant O’Malley stopped by my office before he flew out.” He showed me a slip of paper with my name on it. It was a requisition request.

  I relaxed, but only slightly. All through the night, all I could think was that I had been wrong, that there had been an informant in 8 Group, and I had lost him.

  But even as the fear nipped at my heels, I knew for certain no one had exploited the secrets so rife at Castle Hill House. Not in the last month, at any rate. The informant had left before Pat brought me on.

  And I would make sure the traitor was paid in kind for his treachery.

  “I see, sir. In that case, yes. As soon as it can be managed.” I would honour their memory by finding out who had leaked the information about yesterday’s raid. I would honour them by helping to end this terrible war.

  “Good – you leave at 0800 hours tomorrow. Captain Hardwick will make sure you’re kitted out.”

  Bennet stood and I saluted him.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’ll make them proud, Corporal. I know you will.”