Sons of Macha. John Lenahan

shades.’

      Ruby adjusted the huge sunglasses. ‘If they’re good enough for Ray Charles,’ she said, ‘then they’re good enough for me.’

      ‘Indubitably,’ I agreed.

      The sound of distant sirens pulled my attention away from the undersized child in the oversized sunglasses. Essa had started the portal to Tir na Nog – there was an outline hanging in the air but it didn’t look like anything I wanted to step into.

      ‘Pick up the pace, old lady,’ I said. ‘We’ll soon have company.’

      ‘You want to do this, Duir Boy?’ she grumbled. ‘Stepping through an unstable portal is almost as dangerous as calling me “old lady”.’

      ‘Seriously,’ Brendan said. There was concern in his voice. ‘How long?’

      ‘It could be soon if you would allow me to concentrate.’

      Brendan and I left her alone. The noise of the approaching sirens meant the cops were almost there.

      ‘We’ve got a problem,’ Brendan said.

      ‘You think?’

      ‘Essa wields our only non-lethal weapon and she’s busy opening the magic thingy.’

      ‘You missing your bow and arrows?’

      ‘If the cops get here before she finishes they’ll shoot you.’

      ‘Me?’ I said. ‘What about you? How about when they get here, I tell them that this is all your fault, ’cause now that I think about it – it is.’

      ‘I’ve got an idea of how to slow them down,’ Brendan said, ‘if Ruby is game.’

      For the record I thought it was a dreadful idea. And it certainly made it so I can never return to the Real World. When the two cop cars screeched to a halt in the gravel road, Brendan and his mother stood in front of me frantically waving their hands. Three policemen and Special Agent Murano all got out – guns drawn.

      ‘Don’t shoot,’ Brendan shouted. ‘He’s got my daughter.’

      What the cops saw was me holding a knife to little Ruby’s throat. Actually it was the nail file from Brendan’s Swiss army knife but hopefully none of the cops’ eyesight was good enough to notice that.

      ‘Stand back coppers,’ I said in my best Jimmy Cagney voice, ‘or I’ll let the girl have it.’

      That was Ruby’s cue to let loose what her father called one of her ‘migraine screams’. Despite the name, I was unprepared for the ear bleeding, high-pitched volume of the screech. I almost dropped the knife and I’m sure that every dog in a five-mile radius ran underneath a sofa.

      ‘Ow,’ I said.

      Brendan turned around and whispered, ‘Told you so.’

      ‘Take it easy, O’Neil,’ one of the policemen shouted.

      ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I want to talk to The Shrink.’

      ‘OK, O’Neil, we’ll get you a psychologist,’ the cop replied. ‘It’s just going to take a little time.’

      ‘I don’t want to talk to a psychologist, I want to talk to THE SHRINK aka Agent Andy. Didn’t you guys know? That’s what they call him at FBI central.’

      ‘Don’t hurt the girl, O’Neil,’ Murano shouted.

      Ruby let loose another one of her sonic screams that made us all tilt our head a bit until it was over. I was surprised that the lenses in her Ray-Bans didn’t shatter.

      ‘This is your fault, Shrink,’ I shouted. ‘I was a mild-mannered fantasist before you tied me to a chair and tortured me. You turned me into a child killer.’ I gave Ruby a shake for effect and she bit my arm. It really hurt. I lowered the knife and I saw the cops levelling their guns.

      Brendan stepped in front fast and said, ‘Don’t shoot,’ while I repositioned the nail file. I whispered to Ruby, ‘What you bite me for?’

      She whispered, ‘I’m trying to make it look good.’

      ‘Well, ow,’ I said and then got back to work on the FBI man. ‘So is attacking a shackled man in the FBI interrogation book?’

      ‘I never …’

      ‘Don’t make me do it,’ I shouted. ‘You know what you did. You tortured me and wrote out a fake confession.’

      I was stalling for time but I also wanted Murano to feel a little bit guilty about all this. I’m sure in his mind he now felt exonerated about how he treated me. After all, I wasn’t being very chivalrous – I had a knife to the throat of a young blind girl – but I hoped that someone would investigate his actions and get him busted to airport bathroom security.

      ‘Almost there,’ Essa shouted.

      ‘Thank the gods,’ I said.

      ‘O’Neil,’ Murano said, ‘what is the old woman doing?’

      The familiar ring of an active portal reached my ears as Essa said, ‘Who you calling old?’

      Mom, Dad and Nieve burst through the portal on horseback. Mom threw two of her Shadowmagic exploding light bombs at the two cops on the left and Dad and Nieve threw what looked like small knives at the other cop and the FBI man. The knives swerved directly into the chests of the cop and Agent Murano.

      While Mom’s victims were blown off their feet, the cop and the FBI man just looked at the knives sticking out of their chests and fell over backwards.

      ‘Hi, son,’ Dad said casually as he rode over to Murano.

      ‘You didn’t have to kill them!’ Brendan shouted as he ran to the FBI man and reached for the knife sticking out of his chest.

      Dad stopped him. ‘It’s not a knife.’

      ‘I can … I can’t move,’ the Fed said.

      ‘It’s a knife handle but no blade,’ Dad explained, ‘instead of a blade it has one of Nieve’s paralysing pins in it. Pull it out.’ Brendan pulled the knife blade out of the FBI man’s chest and looked at the gold pin.

      ‘Cool,’ Brendan said and handed it to me.

      Murano sat up and felt his chest. ‘I can mo—’

      I stuck the pin/knife back in his chest and he fell over like a stuffed teddy bear.

      Nieve rode over and while hanging dangerously low to the side of her saddle, gave Brendan a long kiss. When it seemed like it would never stop, Brendan’s mother gave a discreet cough. Brendan looked up to see his mother staring at him with her arms crossed.

      ‘Oh yeah. Um, Mom, Gem, this is my … friend, Nieve. Nieve, this is my mother Nora and my daughter Ruby.’

      Nieve replied, ‘It is very nice to meet you, I’ve heard so much about you both.’

      ‘We’ll have plenty of time for niceties once we are back in The Land,’ Mom said, riding by. ‘Let us leave this place.’

      Brendan turned to his mother and daughter. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? You might not ever get to come back.’

      ‘We have already discussed this,’ Nora said. ‘What you did today was right and I am proud of you but your actions mean you can no longer stay here.’

      ‘We want to be with you, Daddy,’ Ruby said taking her father’s hand. His mother took the other and the three of them walked through the portal.

      Mom was next. I asked her to relay a message to Tuan for me when she got back to Tir na Nog then I cuffed the cop with his own handcuffs and hog-tied the FBI man with his belt. I took back the paralysing