Page 17 of The Tides of March

“It’s time to meet Ma MacCrory,” Nox said as his hands cradled Tony’s face. “Unless you’d like to go back,” he offered, sounding hopeful. “You can just take my word for it and accept that I couldn’t explain, when I barely understood what was happening myself. There are still parts that baffle me,” Nox admitted.

“Then, show me,” Tony said, closing his eyes. “Maybe we can make sense of this together.”

“Maybe,” Nox replied but sounded skeptical.

They were in the cramped, filthy kitchen of a trailer when Tony opened his eyes. He was momentarily disgusted by all the dirty dishes and rotting trash heaped on the counter and filling the sink, but jumped and swore when he noticed the bent and shriveled corpse of an elderly woman on the floor. Her tattered blue housecoat was smeared with various food stains and coffee grounds and she’d kicked off one of her pink house slippers.

“This is her?” Tony asked weakly, raising a fist to his nose to block some of the smell. He didn’t know how it was possible, but the odors were so real and so intense, they made Tony’s stomach churn and he swallowed acid as it tickled his throat.

“This is her,” Nox said as he lowered to a knee next to the elderly woman’s corpse. “This was our first sign that the mastermind was tying up loose ends and this is when I first heardHim.”

“Him?” Tony asked as he lowered next to Nox and studied the woman’s face. He remembered that she had died from yew poisoning and noted the paleness of her skin and how gray her lips looked.

“The Dagda,” Nox said and Tony’s eyes swung to his face, the body forgotten.

“You heardHim?” He didn’t hide his awe and leaned in as Nox nodded.

“I had started slipping, saying things in Gaelic. But this was the first time I heardHimand when I really started checking out. I can’t say how quickly it happened or how often, but there were days when it seemed likeHewas behind the wheel more than I was.”

“Oh, God!” Tony gasped but Nox smirked.

“Oh Dagda, actually,” he said, making Tony pull a face. Nox grinned wryly and shrugged. “At that point, I was just a pawn and the Dagda was more interested in getting even with an identity thief.”

“Walt,” Tony said and Nox nodded.

“This was Walt’s opening move, when he was ready to draw me out.”

“What did he do?”

Nox’s eyes narrowed as he stood, gesturing for Tony to follow as he headed around the wall and sidestepped through the waist-high mess in the trailer’s living room. “He cursed me. Or, at leasthe tried to,” Nox said, his lip curling as he made his way to a weakly-lit room at the end of the short hallway. He used the toe of his boot to push open the door and fanned in front of his face when they were hit by another blast of putrid odors.

Flies buzzed loudly and swarmed around a shrine in the closet, drawing Tony’s attention and making the hairs on the back of his neck and arms stand. “What’s that?” he asked, his voice wavering as his nerves fizzed.

“Take a look,” Nox insisted and waved at it, but wouldn’t look. His eyes were fixed on a point in the hallway.

“Okay…” Tony edged closer, noting an old cast-iron cauldron buried beneath mounds of melted candles. In it, he found chunks of molded, maggot-infested, half-charred bits of animal bones and meat, but he also spotted an open locket and the remnants of a photo. A child’s face beamed at Tony through the soot and debris and he was furious when he recognized it. “That’s you! I’ve seen that picture at your place!”

Nox nodded quickly, his tears making soft pattering sounds as they hit the matted carpet. “Those were both sacred and Walt stole them from me in broad daylight. He used a demon’s spell so he could walk right in and then, he made me forget.”

“That son of a bitch!” Tony spat, making Nox chuckle as he headed down the hall.

He gestured for Tony to follow. “She was, but we’ll save Sheila Forsythe for another day,” he said as he got the front door for Tony.

“Thanks!” he said, relieved to get out of the MacCrorys’ disgusting trailer. He leaped out and took a deep breath, then jumped when he saw a giant, faded skull and triskelion painted over the door of a sagging barn.

“There’s an even bigger one on the side,” Nox said as he joined Tony on the porch. “I’ll save you the trouble of asking, the barn’s full of antlers. It’s like a thicket and you can’t move inthere without getting stuck. That’s where Elsa Hansen spent her last days and she died in that field, running for her life,” he said as he pointed at an open field and the forest behind it.

“What’s—?” Tony started to ask, squinting at the shimmering coils in the knee-high weeds, but stopped when he realized what he was seeing. Hundreds of yards of concertina wire and claymore mines crisscrossed the field, creating a no man’s land between the MacCrorys’ property and the woods. “These people were monsters,” he said shakily.

“Almost as evil as the creature that attacked you. Time to close your eyes,” Nox said and Tony happily snapped them shut.

“I never want to see this place again.”

“Awful, isn’t it?” Nox murmured. “I return to these places often in my nightmares.” His hands were cold and shaking as they cupped Tony’s cheeks. “Breathe with me,” he reminded Tony.

He obeyed, nodding faintly as he inhaled with Nox and slowly let it out. “Whoa!” Tony whispered when the wind stilled and he felt hard linoleum beneath his feet. He was warmer—indoors, obviously—and the place smelled strongly of disinfectant.

“You can open your eyes,” Nox said, releasing Tony and stepping aside.

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