The Forgotten Ones

as the man walked down to where we stood. As he got closer, I took in his gaunt features and sunken eyes filled with malevolence.
    “Stay back,” Liam hissed, pushing past me.
    “Has Aoife let you off of your leash?” the stranger asked.
    Something shifted in Liam’s stance, he stood straighter and tension rippled through his body.
    “This is all your doing, Aengus?” Liam gestured to the city.
    “How long is your mistress going to keep us locked out of Tír na n’Óg?” Aengus asked, ignoring Liam’s question.
    “I don’t know anything about you being locked out. Things have been”—Liam hesitated—“out of sorts in Tír na n’Óg. You can probably thank Breanh for keeping you out.”
    Liam looked back at me, but quickly realized his mistake when Aengus noticed me standing there. Before I could even try to move, Aengus appeared in front of me. He reached out and stroked my jaw with a long, bony finger.
    “Ahh, and who do we have here?” he asked, his warm breath blowing in my face as his eyes raked over my skin.
    Liam ran back to my side and grabbed Aengus’s hand to shove him away. I heard the metallic whoosh of a blade, and in a flash, Liam was on his knees. The color drained from his face, and I looked down to see the handle of a knife sticking out of Liam’s side.
    Before Aengus’s sneer had a chance to fully form, he was knocked to the ground by a blur of silver light. I quickly figured out that the silver blur was actually a gigantic man, dressed all in black with a closely-shaved head.
    Without hesitation, the man yanked Aengus’s head back by his hair and put a wicked-looking dagger to his throat. Aengus grimaced as the edge of the dagger drew a thin line across his neck.
    I rushed to Liam’s side as his body went limp, and I struggled to get him down to the ground without injuring him more. He tried to speak but all he could manage was a low gurgling sound.
    “Shhh,” I crooned, trying to calm him. I sat him in an upright position as I scrambled to figure out how to help him. I needed to put pressure on the wound, but the dagger was still sticking out. And I knew that if I pulled it out, it would increase the blood flow.
    “Aodhan,” I heard Aengus hiss between clenched teeth. “Another pleasant surprise.”
    “You like torturing the innocent, do you?” Aodhan asked as he yanked Aengus’s head back further.
    “Just kill me and get it over with,” Aengus spat.
    “Oh, no. That would be much too easy,” Aodhan growled as he pulled a cord out of his pocket, the dagger still held firmly to Aengus’s throat. “How do you like being tortured?”
    Aodhan secured Aengus’s hands behind his back and lifted a length of steel chain from a cargo pocket at this thigh. He put the dagger between his teeth and wrapped the chain around Aengus’s throat.
    Aengus groaned, and his knees buckled out from under him. Aodhan shoved him to the ground and looked up at me. I could only stare back in silence. There was something familiar about this guy.
    His gaze flickered over my shoulder. “Take care of him,” he snarled.
    I looked back and saw Niall approaching cautiously. His eyes remained on the sprawled form of Aengus lying face down on the pavement. Without a word, Aodhan approached us and gently lifted Liam up.
    “Come on,” Aodhan said to me, his Irish accent thicker and harder to understand than Liam’s. “We need to take care of his wound.”
    I nodded and followed Aodhan up the deserted street toward his motel. The bartender had told us the city had imposed a curfew, and there wasn’t a soul out now that dusk had fallen.
    Aodhan’s room was on the second floor, but he carried Liam up the flight with no trouble at all. He pulled out a key card and unlocked the door, pushing it open and laying Liam on the bed.
    Relief flooded through me that he wasn’t bleeding as much as I‘d feared, but his shirt was ruined.
    “Get the towels from the bathroom and fill the basin with hot water,” Aodhan instructed.
    When I came back with the supplies, he had Liam’s shirt off, and I could see that the dagger stuck just below his rib cage on his left side. His milky-white skin was covered in a sheen of sweat and streaked with a rivulet of blood.
    “I’m going to pull this out. When I do, I want you to immediately apply the towel to the wound.”
    I unfolded the towel and knelt by Liam’s side. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was shallow.
    “Ready?” Aodhan said.
    I