Building From Ashes

Carwyn tugged on a lock of her wild, red hair. “Which will not be for many, many years.”

She smiled and lifted a hand to pat his shoulder. “No, Father. I do not despair of this life. I am simply… weary of it at the moment.”

He left an arm around her shoulders. “Pray with me?”

“Of course.”

Carwyn closed his eyes and felt the ancient mountain surrounding him, the pulse of creation beneath his feet. His soul reached up as he opened his lips to whisper the ancient words. “Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. Give heed to the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for to You I will pray. My voice You shall hear in the morning. In the morning, I will direct it to You…”

Deirdre whispered softly, “And I will look up.”

Dublin

May 2010

Another day. Another night.

Brigid slung her bag on her desk and picked up the list of tasks Tom had given her. It was too short. She looked up to see Declan watching her with guarded eyes. “This is all?”

He shrugged. “Ask Tom if you want more.”

“I have asked. Does he think I’m a weeping mess? I want more to do.”

Jack spoke quietly from the other side of the room. “No one thinks you’re a weeping mess, but you’ve been working fourteen-hour nights for the past five months. Perhaps—”

“Perhaps you all should just let me work like I want to and not worry about me.”

Jack’s mouth turned up at the corner. “Impossible.”

Declan said, “Angie said she had some messages for you. Did you check her desk?”

She left the room just as Declan and Jack began one of their wordless conversations that pissed her off. They all pissed her off. Murphy pissed her off with his kid-glove treatment. She hadn’t spoken to Emily in months. Axel and his little friends could go to hell. Her family wanted her home, but she had refused to go since Ioan’s funeral. Deirdre and Sinead had come to the city the month before. She smiled and nodded and made all the right noises so they would leave her alone. Carwyn… well, he obviously couldn’t be bothered.

Another day. Another night.

She picked up a stack of messages from Angie’s desk with her name on the top and paged through them. Anne had called again. Fecking doctor. She didn’t need to have a deep heart-to-heart with her therapist. She needed to work and she needed to kill someone.

And once again, Carwyn had already beaten her to it.

Fecking Carwyn.

She walked back in the office and began the manifest searches that Tom had listed for her. The one positive about this whole situation was that Lorenzo had been revealed as the source for the drugs that had been pouring into Dublin. He’d made himself quite rich off her streets, as a matter of fact. They were still trying to get a handle on how extensive his connections had been.

Her boss and colleagues thought they had things well in hand. Thought that the problem would drift away now that Lorenzo had been driven out of Ireland.

“Like the snake he is,” she muttered, curling her lip in a dark humor.

Idiots. Despite what Patrick Murphy and the others thought, Brigid knew the murderer hadn’t worked alone. He would have needed someone who knew the city better. Who had contacts and knew what clubs to distribute through. There had to be a local. Human? Vampire? It was her mission to find out.

“Connor!”

“What?” She looked up at Tom, annoyed by the interruption.

“Murphy wants to talk to you.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll be right there.”

Another day. Another night.

Another phone call from Deirdre that made Murphy hop to attention. Another “friendly chat” to see how she was doing. He’d ask her if she was sleeping well. He’d offer to listen. To give her time off from work so she could go home.

There was nothing and no one she wanted to see at home.

She nodded through her chat with Murphy, worked until Declan and Jack retired for the morning, then she worked a little more. Anything to keep her from the silent rooms where ghosts haunted her and sleep slipped through her grasp.

Another day. Another night.

Finally, she dragged herself up to her room and collapsed on the bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow, images assaulted her—images of Ioan, bloody and tortured in the warehouse by the river. Then images of him from her childhood as they read books in the library. When Brigid finally fell asleep, she dreamed she was beating on a grey metal door, powerless to open it as she heard agonized cries from inside. She dreamt she heard Deirdre weeping, but when she woke, it was her own face that was covered in tears.

Wicklow

June 2010

Carwyn sat up when Deirdre came into the library.

“What do you mean, she’s gone?”

Deirdre’s eyes were wide with terror. “Murphy said that she didn’t come into work tonight. It’s the first night she’s ever missed work. She never misses work. And he says she hasn’t been sleeping. She says she’s fine, but she’s been working all night and day and—”

Carwyn stood and roared, “What the hell is he doing there? Does he have control of that city or not?” He rushed toward the door. “We’re going. Now.”

“Wait. She may just be with friends or—”

“Or she may be in trouble!” He spun around. “She may have stumbled onto something about Ioan’s murder and run off like a lunatic. She may be…”