The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

there’s a need for you. ’Tis a night for wonders, Trevor Magee. Go on, now, and be part of them.”
    He didn’t hesitate. She’d hardly faded away when he was snatching up the candle to light his way out of the house and into the storm.

NINETEEN

    T HE AIR WAS alive, and angry. It slapped and bit. Rain, like thin needles of glass, jabbed at his clothes and stabbed at exposed skin. Nasty marbles of hail beat down on grass, battered the flowers, and turned the ground into treachery.
    And still the lightning slashed, ripping open the sky so thunder could charge through in snarling bellows.
    Trevor was breathless and drenched before he got to the car.
    The rational part of his mind warned him it was insane to venture out on such a night. More sensible to wait out the storm than to drive into the snapping teeth of it. But he was already turning the key in the ignition.
    The wind howled like a banshee, tore at the hedgerows so that bits of bloom and leaf flew past like crazed insects. He’d have sworn it had fists and fingers. His headlights made twin slashes through the wall of rain, spotlighting the full fury of it. He fought the car down the road that was rapidly turning into a ditch of mud, and when he shuddered around a bend, the sky exploded, etching the jagged burst of light on his eyes. The freight train of thunder roared after it.
    Under it all, quiet as grief, was the sound of a woman’s desperate weeping.
    He stomped on the gas, fishtailed sickly around the next curve. In the distance, he saw a sprinkling of lights that was Ardmore.
    Candle- and lamplight in the houses. Some would have generators, he realized. The pub did. Darcy was fine, tucked inside, warm, dry, safe. There was no reason to drive like a madman when there was nothing wrong.
    But the sense of urgency, the brutal need to hurry stayed with him. With his hands clamped to the wheel, he skidded around the turn at Tower Hill. And his car stopped dead.
    “What the hell is this?” Frantic, infuriated, he twisted the key, pumped impatiently at the gas. But all he got in return was a faint and mocking click.
    Swearing, he punched open the glove compartment, snatched out the flashlight he kept there, and felt only grim satisfaction when the beam shot on.
    With its next violent gust, the wind nearly swept him off his feet as he climbed out of the car. It seemed to want to. Pitting himself against it, he fought his way to the gate, muscled it open while the rain slashed and the hail pummeled. He would just cut through, save time.
    The boggy ground sucked at his feet, slowed him to a jog when he wanted, needed, to run flat out. The stones of the dead speared up like teeth out of a knee-high layer of fog that lay nowhere else.
    Carrick, Trevor thought, in disgust and fury. Pulling out all the stops.
    Lightning burst again, seemed to glow blue over the grave of the long-dead John Magee.
    Flowers? Trevor skidded to a halt, panting, and stared down at the carpet of flowers blooming like a rainbow. The grass was bent and flattened by the force of the storm, but those fragile petals were open and perfect. The wind that shoved against him only fluttered them gently, and no cold finger of fog touched them.
    Magic, he thought, then looked out, toward the sea where he could see the white-tipped walls of waves rear and crash. Magic wasn’t always bright and pretty. Tonight, it was full of wrath.
    He turned from the grave and rushed on.
    He skidded, slithering down the hill. He rapped hard into the trunk of a tree that seemed to rise up out of nowhere. Pain pounded in his shoulder, racing to match the pounding of his heart. Every time he lost his balance, should have tumbled over the stony ground to the road below, he managed to gain it again.
    Later, he would think that that alone had been a miracle.
    On solid ground once more, he ran, feet pounding against the wet footpath, around yet one more turn. He could see the pub now, the warm, welcoming glow of light against the window.
    Lungs burning, he focused on that. Then something drew his gaze over and up, a whisper under the wind? A weeping. He saw in the top window of the Gallagher house a woman. Pale hair glowing against the dark, green eyes watching him.
    That was wrong, he thought, and she was gone as soon as he thought it. Against the glass was the faintest of light, and no movement behind it.
    Wrong. Something was wrong. So he turned away from the pub and pushed through the wind to the door of the