“We need to figure out who set her free,” Aodhan said, clearly agitated. His Irish brogue became thicker and harder to understand when he was alarmed.
Deaghlan laughed beside me. “That isn’t hard to figure out, is it?”
The three of us turned to Deaghlan expectantly. He shook his head and chuckled. “My bet is on Saoirse. I would’ve done it myself if I had a chance.”
Saoirse was the queen of Tír na n’Óg, Aoife and Niamh’s mother. In Danaan society, the queen was the most powerful member of the race. But when I’d met her, she’d seemed very interested in restoring order after all the chaos Aoife created.
“No, it couldn’t be.” Liam swallowed and rubbed his palms over his face. “Saoirse knows what Aoife has done. She wouldn’t let her out of her sight.”
Deaghlan wrapped the end of my ponytail around his finger and laughed when I cringed. “We’ll see.”
Aodhan’s eyes narrowed and the muscles in his jaw tensed. I could tell he wanted to say more, but he kept quiet. Once Deaghlan was gone I hoped to hear what he really thought. Since Aodhan came back to the human realm in 1888, he spent his days as a self-imposed vigilante. Every time one of the Danaans stepped out of line, Aodhan knew about it and put an end to it immediately. Danaans were sometimes to blame for stories on the news, usually just pranks or cases of unexplained amnesia.
But recently in Canada, a group of Danaans started siphoning human blood for some forbidden magic that Aoife was involved in. Liam told me this ancient magic was forbidden by Saoirse because it made the Danaans do terrible things, such as draining their victims and tossing their bodies in the gutter. Liam and I found Aodhan by going to Thunder Bay in Ontario where the reports of a blood-thirsty serial killer were all over the news. I’d gotten a glimpse of what this forbidden magic did to the Danaans. The one I saw looked like a strung-out heroin addict.
“Well, if there isn’t anything we can do for now, I have to get ready for work,” I said, moving away from the table and Deaghlan’s maddening faerie mojo.
I’ve worked three or four days a week at my grandfather’s hardware store since I was a junior in high school. O’Malley’s Hardware is only about a mile and a half from our house in Stoneville. I left the house about ten minutes before the start of my shift at three.
As I rolled up to the stop sign at the end of our road, my little SUV started making an odd thumping noise. I glanced at the dashboard, but none of the warning lights were on. Once I was sure there were no oncoming cars, I turned onto Main Street. The thump grew louder as I sped up and I figured I better pull over at Murphy’s Convenience Store.
It was coming from the front passenger side and sure enough when I walked around the hood, my tire was flat. I cursed internally at not renewing my membership to AAA this year. I never had to change a tire and wasn’t sure how.
I pulled out my phone to call my grandfather just as the door to Murphy’s jangled behind me.
Glancing over my shoulder, I recognized a slightly familiar blonde holding the door for someone behind her. Ethan walked out and stopped when he saw me.
All the blood drained from my face at seeing them together again. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I focused on my flat tire, hoping they’d be on their way.
“Allison,” Ethan said, his voice apathetic.
I fought to make my expression equally cool before turning to face him “Oh, hey Ethan.”
“Having a little trouble?” he asked, nodding at my tire.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
Ethan took two steps toward me and froze. I looked up at his face and he seemed confused for a second. Then his expression shifted back and he laughed. It wasn’t like he was laughing at a joke, not a playful laugh. It was cruel, like he was laughing at me. My heart turned to icy lead in my chest and I turned away.
“Well, that sucks,” he said as he dropped his arm over the blonde’s shoulder and walked toward the gas pumps where his truck was parked.
I chewed my lip as I stared at the tire. Ethan’s behavior was so at odds with the guy I knew. I guess I didn’t deserve his help after the way I’d ended things. I mean, we’d only hung out a few times and then there were those kisses. I’d told him none of it meant anything to me, but only because I didn’t want him mixed up in any of the strange stuff that had been happening to me. But for him to walk away laughing at me was just plain mean.
I needed to figure out how to fix this, no matter how humiliated I felt. I’d seen plenty of tire changes in my life. It was time I took care of myself for once.
I popped open the rear door and pulled out my jack and lug wrench. After laying them out next to my flat, I discreetly searched for directions to change a tire on my phone. I found a quick tutorial online and followed each step. Unscrewing the bolts was the hardest part, but I stomped on the wrench and managed to get them off. It probably took three times as long as it should have, but when I tightened the final bolt on the spare and hauled the flat into the back, I dusted off my hands and smiled in satisfaction.