26: The Confabulating Irishman

Sea­mus groaned loud­ly as he heaved him­self in­to a sit­ting po­si­tion. The gash in his side sent a sharp pain through him with the sud­den move­ment. It was enough to cause the Irish­man to sud­den­ly feel nau­seous. When the room fi­nal­ly stopped spin­ning, Sea­mus ex­haled a long breath and ran a hand through his hair to make sure it re­al­ly had been the room spin­ning and not his head.

The fever had fi­nal­ly sub­sid­ed at some point, al­though, Sea­mus had been un­able to pin­point the ex­act mo­ment. All he could re­mem­ber was that he was no longer on fire and that he could hear her. She had been singing some­thing. There were no words, ex­act­ly, but he had heard her voice reach­ing across the charred re­mains of the land­scape of his mind. Re­al­iz­ing that the fires were fi­nal­ly gone, Sea­mus had opened his eyes and de­cid­ed it was time to start mov­ing again.

His sud­den move­ment had caught her at­ten­tion. Through the blur of his fo­cus, he had seen her rush from the of­fice across from his own and scur­ry down the main hall to­ward John Black­wick’s of­fice. Ah, that’s right, Sea­mus thought, the boss is back… As the thought fin­ished its pro­ces­sion through his mind, John Black­wick ap­peared in the door­way, a se­ri­ous -- yet con­cerned -- ex­pres­sion set firm­ly on his face.

“Ah, so ye have re­turned. I thought me mind might be playin’ tricks on me in me sick­ness,” Sea­mus quipped as she strug­gled to fo­cus his vi­sion. “I think the fever burned me blind, though. I can bare­ly see ye,” he added.

“Just take it easy, Sea­mus,” John in­struct­ed. “The blind­ness is on­ly tem­po­rary. How long have you been down?”

“Since the last as­sign­ment,” Sea­mus groaned as he tried to straight­en his back. All the days of sleep­ing on the so­fa had left him feel­ing crum­pled, like an arthrit­ic old man. “How long have ye been back?”

“Two days. What hap­pened?” John asked. Sea­mus snapped his emer­ald green eyes to John Black­wick’s face in sud­den se­ri­ous­ness. He no­ticed the glare had no af­fect on his men­tor.

“Have ye not talked to yer love­ly as­sis­tant?” There was an edge to his voice that bor­dered dis­re­spect, but giv­en the sit­ua­tion and the state of his present con­di­tion, Sea­mus didn’t care. He hoped John Black­wick would at least un­der­stand the force that would fol­low that edge should he have tak­en Brig­it’s side.

“I’ve not seen her. Miss Yaris says Brig­it left the of­fice two days ago. She has yet to re­turn,” John ex­plained. Sea­mus eyed the oth­er man for a sec­ond be­fore de­cid­ing he was be­ing hon­est. “Now, tell me what hap­pened to cause this.”

“Ye might want to take a seat,” Sea­mus sug­gest­ed.

Oblig­ing­ly, John Black­wick fetched the wood­en chair from the writ­ing desk and po­si­tioned him­self on it. Sea­mus saw a slight move­ment in the of­fice across the hall and strained his vi­sion for a bet­ter look at the young wom­an that had fetched the boss. She had dark hair and a pale face, but Sea­mus could tell noth­ing more than that.

“Mr. Flan­nery,” John ad­dressed him. Sea­mus quick­ly re­turned his at­ten­tion to John and found a look of slight im­pa­tience on the oth­er man’s pale face.

“Well, ye see, it was a tough as­sign­ment ye hand­ed me…” Sea­mus be­gan.

John watched the Irish­man in­tent­ly as he launched in­to the telling the tale of the glo­ri­ous bat­tle be­tween him­self and the mer­ci­less mem­bers of the Chu­pacabra gang. John kept silent through the saga, notic­ing the slight move­ments that gave away the truth of Sea­mus Flan­nery’s over-​ex­ag­ger­ation in cer­tain parts. The Irish, John Black­wick was well aware, could be prone to great con­fab­ula­tion when they were telling a sto­ry. Be­ing an Irish­man him­self, he knew the im­pulse well. His re­straint of the urge had on­ly come from the many years un­der Arax­ius Herodotus. The Old Man had pos­sessed no pa­tience for any­thing more than the sim­ple truth in any tale and John had learned ear­ly on to tem­per the bardic no­tions that had once ran so strong­ly with­in him.

De­spite his knowl­edge that the in­jured Reaper was ly­ing to a de­gree, John couldn’t help but to feel his tem­per be­gin­ning to spark. It was not so much over Brig­it’s lack of ac­tion in re­gard to Sea­mus Flan­nery, but rather, it was more the fact that she had re­mained ab­sent from the of­fice since her sub­se­quent re­turn and de­posit of Be­lin­da Yaris. John felt slight­ed in the thought that his pro­tégé, his as­sis­tant, would not trust that he would un­der­stand once he had heard her side of the sto­ry. Brig­it’s con­tin­ued ab­sence from the of­fice added to the wan­ing of John’s un­der­stand­ing. His on­ly hope, as Sea­mus Flan­nery fi­nal­ly con­clud­ed his tale, was that he could re­gain his sense of un­der­stand­ing once he did hear her side of it all.