Eerie

Chapter 6 The Hope

Chapter six

The Hope

"Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity." – Robert G. Ingersoll

Hailey ran into the ladies’ room to recompose but instead found herself trapped in a stall when two of Fin’s scantily-dressed fans promenaded in and parked in front of the mirror.

Call it pride, but Hailey didn’t want them to see her cry face, so she sighed and waited next to the toilet for them to leave.

It sounded like they were just fluffing each other’s hair anyway, which Hailey figured shouldn’t take long, but then they started comparing notes on Fin—his clothes, his muscles, which of them he’d looked at first, which of them he was more likely to take home first… on and on it went.

Hailey was stuck.

She’d been so quiet in her stall, they obviously had no idea she was in there listening. And now it would seem like she’d been eavesdropping if she suddenly burst out. She weighed her options and decided to ride this one out…and eavesdrop.

“Did you see his tattoo?” said one.

Hailey didn’t even know Fin had a tattoo.

“Oh. My. God. I bet it goes all the way up his arm,” the other gushed. She smacked her lips. “Wonder how big it is.” It sounded like she was putting on lipstick.

“You would, whore.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Whatever.”

They both laughed.

Hailey felt like she was getting dumber as their babble continued—their makeup, their highlights, how their boobs fit into their tank tops, whether they thought Fin noticed their cleavage…it was never ending.

Hailey rolled her eyes. It was way too cold for a tank top.

“Seriously, he has got to be the sexiest guy I’ve ever seen,” said one.

“Not as sexy as the guy that just walked in here,” hissed the other. “Did you see him?”

“How could I not? That idiot waitress spilled beer all over him.”

Hailey’s jaw fell open. She wasn’t the most graceful server in the world, but she thought “idiot” was going a little far.

“She’s such a skank. You hear about her sister?”

Hailey froze.

“Somebody kidnapped her from the parking lot in broad daylight, and all they found was her bloody shoe!”

“Serves her right. She threw herself at every guy that walked in here.”

Hailey’s heart pounded in her ears. She felt sick. And angry.

“You’re such a bitch.”

Finally one of them was making sense.

“What? She was,” the girl jeered. “I knew her in high school. It was probably her pimp that took her.”

Well, that was all Hailey could stand. She kicked the metal door open, marched right up to the more guilty-looking of the two hairspray-monsters and put her finger in the girl’s face.

“The only skanks in this bar just spent the past eight minutes picking bugs out of each other’s hair and fussing over their over-painted, under-hydrated faces in front of this mirror, but none of your primping and preening makes a shit-bit of difference, because your soul is so ugly that no amount of lipstick and eyeliner can cover it up.

No one is ever going to give you a second glance, and one day you’ll see in that mirror what everybody else sees right now—a dried up, used up, shriveled up, pitiful shell of an STD-infected, loudmouth hag! ”

The girl looked terrified. She shrunk away from Hailey and squeezed her eyes shut as if Hailey were winding up to punch her. The truth was, Hailey was no fighter, but she could sure shame someone into submission. She almost felt bad about that.

“And it’s way too cold for tank tops!” she added as she turned to leave.

“She was talking to you,” one of them said as Hailey strode out the door.

“Crabs is not an STD,” the other argued before the door closed.

Gross, thought Hailey, and she scrunched her nose.

If Hailey felt bad when she walked into the bathroom, she came out feeling far worse. As she rounded the corner, she saw the booth where her dream man had been now sat empty.

“Hey Fin,” she said, pausing near the bar, “where’d my customer go?” She jabbed her thumb at his booth.

“Oh… He was pretty pissed you spilled a drink on him. He just got up and left.”

“Oh no…oh man…I’m such a klutz!” Hailey threw her hands over her face. “And I didn’t apologize properly!”

“The guy was a jerk, Hailey. He didn’t deserve your apology.”

“Why? Did he say something?”

Fin pressed his lips together and busied himself with wiping an already clean part of the bar.

She looked at him quizzically, wondering how bad it was—wondering if the stranger had used the word “skank” as he stormed out. Fin never answered and looked relieved when a customer asked him to refill a stout.

She hated it when someone walked away angry. Just another failure to replay in her mind later.

Holly would have smoothed things over in a jiffy. Then she would’ve grabbed her shoes, turned on the music, and got the crowd clapping and cheering and forgetting about one silly little spilled beer.

Hailey looked longingly at the door, hoping she’d magically appear.

She didn’t.

Fin’s fans were back at the bar and back on the prowl in short order, fully recovered and completely unaffected by Hailey’s tongue-lashing.

Fin was eating it up, too, tossing glasses in the air and bottles behind his back, never missing one and never spilling a drop.

The hags cheered and shimmied and smothered him with compliments.

It was revolting. Hailey didn’t want to be anywhere near them. She was about to grab some whiskey and go talk to her mom, when an unshaven, sweaty little man burst into the pub. He strode past the bar and made a bee-line for the back room.

Hailey followed and watched as he disappeared inside with her uncles. She tip-toed closer, listening through the door, picking up what she could through the thrum of the bodhrán.

“…at least two of ‘em…skulking around…couple’a wretches to do the dirty work…” Hailey leaned her ear closer.

“Betrayal!” one of her uncles shouted, and Hailey winced.

“First Katherine. Now Holly!” Hailey’s heart pounded at the mention of her mother.

“The line is broken,” said another. “Why would they do it? No, it’s not them at all, at all.”

“It makes no sense,” agreed another.

“One’s gone rogue, I tell yeh.”

“And taken our sight! We’re blind, all of us!”

“…could be a wretch, could be right under our nose—we wouldn’t know it.”

“And what can we do about it? Feckin nothing!” That voice belonged to Uncle Pix.

“We protect the ones that need protecting,” one of her uncles answered calmly, “like we always have.”

“We cannot protect against what we cannot see!”

“Maybe they’ve gone!”

The drumming stopped. All was silent, and a commotion of “ni hés’” and “bollocks’s” followed. The bodhrán resumed.

“We’re still here, aren’t we? We’re still here, they’re still here. That’s the way it is. We have a duty, and a charge to protect.”

“Any word from the University?”

Someone slammed their fist on the table, and the drumming picked up.

There was a long pause.

“Did you get a location, Billy?” someone asked. Billy was the man who’d just arrived, Hailey figured. He needed to talk louder. She could barely hear him over the high-pitched hag laughter coming from the bar.

“…on consecrated ground…still out there...”

She strained to hear more, but somebody grabbed her arm and yanked her away from the door.

“Ouch!”

“What are you doing?” Fin chastised, and Hailey wrenched her arm out of his grip.

“Eavesdropping,” she said unashamed. “Obviously.”

Just then a couple of chairs squeaked across the floor inside the room and footsteps approached the door.

“Shoot!” she whispered, grabbing Fin by the arm. “Go-go-go.” Fin let her turn him around and run him back to the bar.

“What did you hear?” he demanded.

She peeked over her shoulder. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

Hailey shook her head. “Bits and pieces. It didn’t make any sense.”

Fin relaxed his posture, looking curiously relieved.

Sometime around 2am the brothers emerged from the back. Uncle Pix pulled Hailey aside as Fin closed up.

“We’ll be out all night looking for your sister,” he told her. “Fin will walk you home and stay with you until we get back.”

All night? Hailey nodded, frowning. They couldn’t know where Holly was then, but still she had a feeling her uncle knew a lot more than he was telling her.

“I’m coming with you,” she said, her voice rising. Pix just sighed and shook his head. He hugged her tight, nodded to Fin, who nodded back, and he left the pub with his brothers. Hailey stared expressionless at the door as it closed behind them.

Fin grabbed his coat from behind the bar and met Hailey by the exit. “Where’s your coat?” he asked her.

“I didn’t wear one,” she said, still staring blankly at the door.

Throwing his leather jacket over Hailey’s shoulders, Fin led her outside, hitting the lights as they left.

Hailey stuck her arms through the sleeves, which were several inches too long. She let them swish at her side as she walked. It was a chilly night, and she shivered when the wind blew.

“Zip your coat,” Fin said with a smile.

Hailey lifted her arms repeatedly trying to get her hands out of the sleeves.

Fin watched, chuckling. “Come here, chowder-head.” He pulled on her arm to break her stride, shook his head, and zipped his coat for her.

“Do you think they’ll find her?” she asked him hopefully.

Fin seemed to be in cahoots with her uncles. So did Frog-the-bouncer. In fact everyone seemed to know more than they were saying. It was like they were intentionally keeping her in the dark about something, and it was scary.

“I’m sorry, Hailey,” he said softly. “I don’t know.”

It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but it sounded honest.

He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her next to him as they walked.

“She’s coming home, I know it,” Hailey told him.

“I hope so too,” he said, hugging her closer.

Asher looked on from the shadows. Seeing a human—that human—touching his girl stirred within him a new uneasiness. Now she was leaning into him, and Asher’s hands tightened to fists. If she required comfort, Asher would provide it for her in the Aether—he’d instruct her to remember that.

As for Pádraig, though loyal and inherently good, he would do well to leave this place.

His presence here was pointless. He could never protect the girl from an Envoy, he’d be shredded.

And his interference with Asher’s interest was troublesome.

He must’ve forgotten the punishment Asher could inflict for his insolence. Perhaps he needed a reminder.

And perhaps Hailey needed a demonstration of Envoy power. Here. On Earth.

He’d rid her of Pádraig. And she’d look to Asher for comfort.

Relaxing his fists, Asher disappeared into the night.