Dog Days of Summer (Damned of the 2/19th Book Four) - Finished

Blood Debts

McDaurn Family Farm

Lewis County, WA, USA

11 August 1986

0246 Hours

Matron Rionoch, one of the Elder Matrons who was arguably more powerful than the Grand Matron, stood in front of the door of the room. Her arms were crossed and her old wrinkled face was split by a yellow toothed smile. She was a heavyset woman that fit every grandmother cliche in the world.

Drawing the knife from behind my back I took a step forward, gritting my teeth, focused on the old woman. She was armed, I could see her athema in her sash and knew that it would have a needle point and a razor sharp edge. I might hesitate, given the fact she was old, a woman, a Matron, and a civilian, but she would not hesitate to gut me and leave me standing there with my intestines puddled on my boots.

"Ah, kill me, but what then, Ant?" She asked me softly as I took two more careful steps.

That stopped me.

"What did you say?" I asked.

"I asked you what you will do once you kill me, Ant." She said softly. She chuckled at my sudden stillness and the look of shock that was slowly spreading over my features. "You are no more Aodan than I am a kelly."

"Are we wasting her or what?" Bomber asked.

"Please don't." Kevera whispered. "She has always been kind to me."

Matron Rionoch nodded. "That may be true, but that was before I was between Ant and his escape. If I was anyone else, or if I make one wrong move, Ant will leave me dead or dying and lead all of you out of this door over my cooling corpse."

My eyes narrowed as I listened past her words, searching for any audible clues that she was stalling while her boys moved into position but heard nothing.

Matron Rionoch shrugged slowly. "Right now he is considering if taking me hostage will work if I have been stalling as well as making additional plans on how to escape through alternate means." I frowned at her. "Now he is considering if he can hold the door against everyone who might come against him in this house should others be waiting beyond the door."

I nodded slowly.

"You are wondering why I am standing here and what I could want, are you not, Ant?" She asked slowly.

I could feel the fear rolling off of the girls behind me, Bomber and Nagle's tense readiness that wavered back and forth between the programming both had suffered earlier in the day and the drugged tea.

"Why would you help us?" Bomber said, then gagged and burped. "Ech."

Matron Rionoch's features twisted in pain for a moment, then she drew her mantle around herself as she straightened up. "This winter a McDaurn boy, Cassius, was killed."

"I remember." I growled.

...my cousin's mouth opening in shock. Blood ran down his chin...

"He was my grand-son." Matron Rionoch said softly. "One of my beloved boys."

"I'm sorry, Matron." Nancy said softly.

"There is no need from sorrow from you, kelly Nagle. His mother told me how Ant cut my vengeance from the flesh on the one responsible, how Ant tore the one who wronged my daughter apart with his bare hands while the man begged for the mercy that Ant knew I would not grant had I been asked." Her formal tones masked a deep pain that I could still hear and her ancient eyes were vulnerable for a moment.