Ronan Boyle and the Swamp of Certain Death Read online

  A moment later, Sergeant Jeanette O’Brien popped her head out of the commissioner’s office. She was currently in the form of a donkey, as she is a púca, which is the type of Irish faerie that can shape-shift into various animal forms.

  “What do you want, Boyle? Spit it out!” whinnied Sergeant O’Brien in her classic I-don’t-have-time-for-this style.

  “I’ve got to talk to the commissioner, right away,” I said, feeling hot and woozy.

  “He’s in the Netherlands, meeting with the Dutch Gnomepolitz,” said Sergeant O’Brien. “He checks his email if it’s an emergency. Is it an emergency?”

  I thought hard for a moment. My stomach was riding one of the great fictional roller coasters of my mind. Quitting a mission was not the kind of thing I felt comfortable doing over an email. The truth is, I was too frightened to go on the mission, but also FAR too frightened to send that kind of email to the commissioner, who is a serious fellow and in the Netherlands dealing with gnomes.*

  So, being too frightened to quit the mission, I just . . . didn’t quit the mission.

  “May the wind be always at yer back, and may you be in Tir Na Nog before the devil knows yer gone!” said Dermot Lally, my fellow cadet, and a legitimate dreamboat, as we passed in the bustling first-floor hallway of Collins House. “You got this, little Rick.”

  For some reason Dermot Lally calls me “little Rick.” I do not know why. I have stopped correcting him.

  The ghost of Brian Bean (a lovely trainee who died during training and whose specter does celebrity impressions in the halls of Collins House) floated over to me, doing a spot-on version of Flavor Flav, the eccentric rapper from Public Enemy with the clock around his neck.

  “Yeeeeeaaaahhh, boy!” said the ghost of Brian Bean. “Flavor Flav ain’t going out like that. Where the S1-Ws?!”

  “Brilliant, Brian, just brilliant,” I said. There was no denying, this was an absolutely perfect Flavor Flav. I think even Flavor Flav himself would agree. But, while Brian’s comedy is first rate, it can get monotonous to be haunted by him on a daily basis.

  Now, a day later, I was far from Killarney. I would even take a haunting from Brian to be back home in the warmth and safety of Collins House.

  My rogue toes and I were crunching our way over the mountains of lower Tir Na Nog, Land of the Faerie Folk.

  I squinted up at the summit of the Steps, still two hundred meters above us. It was only visible when the clouds parted, revealing a three-quarter moon that looked like it was frowning sideways at me, as well it should be—this was no laughing matter.

  In case you are wondering: Kilts are not ideal for deep snow, even if they look amazing the rest of the time, especially with a jaunty black beret, which I was also wearing.

  This trip was not for pleasure—so it might as well be a huge pain. The weegees I was after are the most unscrupulous band of thugs you would ever want to meet. I actually hope that you don’t meet them, because they will stab you in the knee and then pour very good mustard in the cut.

  The weegees were in league with a disgusting mummy called the Bog Man whom I have sketched below, based on my last sighting of him in Duncannon Fort.

  “The Bog Man” is what I know him to be called. He may have another name. Once upon a time, I thought that the Bog Man was just a four-thousand-year-old museum piece; an Irish Tutankhamen. The Bog Man is, in fact, a living monster. Alive (undead?), unwell, and up to no good.

  The Bog Man’s accomplice is a stinky twenty-four-inch-tall leprechaun I call the Red-Eyed Woman with a Nose That Looks Like It Was Put on Upside Down. If you saw her, this name would make perfect sense.

  These scoundrels had kidnapped Captain de Valera and the magnificent 180-pound wolfhound named Lily. Lily’s fur is a gorgeous rust color and she is one of the best friends I have ever had. Lily is a lieutenant in the Special Unit’s wolfhound division, one of the top three secret canine law enforcement divisions in Northern Europe.

  My mission was the safe return of Captain de Valera and Lily to Special Unit Headquarters in Killarney, County Kerry. If I could catch the Bog Man as well, my parents would be exonerated.

  There are lots of secret gates from the human Republic into the faerie realm. If you’ve been to Ireland, you’ve probably seen them without even noticing. The faerie folk cast small spells to make us not pay any mind to the geataí. I can tell you now, as it’s no longer classified: The busiest leprechaun gate into the human realm was a video rental store in Athlone with a huge sign in the window that said: NINETEEN VHS MOVIES FOR A PENNY! NO LATE FEES, EVER-EVER-EVER. PLEASE COME INSIDE RIGHT NOW!

  This should have seemed suspicious right off the bat. No human wants that many VHS movies. It’s way too many. And the COME INSIDE RIGHT NOW! part feels very dodgy. This sign was written by leprechauns.

  To get into the land of the faerie folk, I had leaped into a geata with my strapping, slightly insane partner, Log MacDougal. With us was a sleek, 160-pound salt and pepper–colored wolfhound called Rí, who holds the equivalent rank as me—Detective, Wolfhound Special Unit of Tir Na Nog.

  The first objective of our mission required that we make contact with an undercover Special Unit operative. He would be awaiting us in the leprechaun town of EDGE.*

  The geata we had passed through earlier tonight was located in an overflowing toilet stall at gate B3 in the departures lounge of Ireland’s wildly underrated Shannon International Airport. As a result, the trip began with a lot of the standard inconveniences of airline travel. I had to take Rí outside before we left for a walk and a pee. While I was not looking, Log had stolen two dozen Kinder Eggs from the duty-free shop. Before you judge her: Log MacDougal was raised by leprechauns, so stealing, fighting, and making up rhymes is all she knows.

  Now as we crunched through the knee-deep snow, Log was in an especially nervous mood. Her low giggle was on a loop. I could sense she was jumpy.

  This mission would take us back into her childhood homeland of Tir Na Nog, and she always gets a little itchy when her family is brought up. She kept checking her shillelagh and the weaponized bottle of Coleman’s super-hot mustard that she carries on her utility belt.

  I was about to collapse from the subzero temperatures and the lack of oxygen content in the air. In the kilt and beret, I was overdressed for the event, while being underdressed for the conditions.

  Log MacDougal is over six feet tall. She hoisted me out of the snow and up onto her shoulder.

  “Up, macushla, time for burpies!” said Log. She dangled me over her shoulder, giggling like the psychopath that I would think that she is were she not also my closest friend other than Dolores. Log tossed a Kinder Egg into her mouth and chewed it up, toy and all.

  “Put me down!” I cried out as my kilt flipped upward, revealing my briefs* to the frowning moon.

  Log MacDougal is as strong as three adult chimpanzees. She carried me over her shoulder as if it were ever-so-hilarious. Now I was freezing and upside down. My face would soon break the pink-o-meter.

  Rí chuckled at the sight of Log carrying me.

  “Grrrrrrrr,” replied Log, in the language of the animals. Log and Rí conversed with each other for a moment, enjoying a laugh despite our dire situation.

  Even though she is a human woman, her faerie upbringing left Log fluent in the language of the animals. Like Italian, fifty percent of the language is naughty expressions.

  My second pair of underpants was now starting to freeze to my first pair of underpants. I made a mental note to triple up the underpants next time, with something from the Thinsulate™ family of products on the bottom layer.

  This was becoming a truly regrettable Tuesday evening.

  As I often do, I started crying, but the tears froze to my lashes before they could get all the way out. This created an ice-bond between my lashes and my glasses. I could no longer blink.

  What happened next was a blur even to Log, who has perfect vision.

  “THHIPP!” went something teensie tiny, splitti
ng the air.

  My lungs were suddenly filled with the smell of peppermint. Hot peppermint is not delightful when it has been weaponized, as this stuff had been. The burning in my jugular vein spread into my bloodstream. I pulled a tiny wooden dart out of my neck. It smelled so minty.

  “Oi, what’s that, macushla?” asked Log as another “THHIPP!” cut through the night and a matching dart landed in her neck.

  Now we were both drowning in peppermint, inside our own cardiovascular systems. Eyes bulging, we gasped for air. Rí had picked up the scent of something moving in the trees and bounded off after it. The last bit I remember was Log falling on top of me, pressing me deep into the snow.

  “God, Log is as dense as a gold dog,” I mumbled as I passed out. I was dazed, dying, and certain that I had just spoken a palindrome* for the first time in my life.

  I awoke sometime later, shivering in a hut, pinned to the wall. I was wrapped up as tightly as a well-made burrito. This was stressful for me, as I have severe claustrophobia.

  A torch on the wall cast ghastly shadows about the freezing hut. From the sound of the wind outside, it seemed that we must be still high up in the Steps.

  I craned my neck to get my bearings. Log was out cold, wrapped in a sack beside me. Rí was nowhere in sight.

  “Oi. Psst. Log!” I whispered, “Wake up. Log. Lara. Lara MacDougal, wake up.”

  No response, even when I used Log’s human name of Lara, which she hates. I blew at her eyes as hard as I could, thinking the peppermint residue on my breath would wake her. Eventually, this did the trick. Log fluttered awake, very annoyed. She began struggling against the sack.

  “Muck me clogs!” shouted Log, using a disgusting bit of leprechaun slang that means “fill my shoes with unicorn poop.”

  Log flexed, straining against the sack. Who or what had wrapped us in these sacks I did not know, and I wasn’t keen to find out.

  A tiny nefarious giggle came from the shadows.

  “Naughty, naughty! Don’t open yet!” hissed a voice that sounded like a Swedish snake. “Don’t open them yet! WAIT FOR YUM YUM.”

  The voice sent chills down my spine, then back up into my beret. It wasn’t a human voice, but it wasn’t a leprechaun, either.

  “SURPRICE!” shrieked a tiny man, no bigger than—and not so different from—a hairless rat. His eyes were black and glassy. His skin was as clear as gelatin, revealing the veins underneath. He had a sharp, pointy nose and no eyelids whatsoever. He had pounced onto the sack that held me, his tiny claws stabbing through the bag and into the top layer of my skin. He wore shredded tights and a hat ringed around with old bells that no longer made a sound.

  “Surprice for to see you! SURPRICE FOR ME TO SEE YOU, YUM YUM! LITTLE MIG FIND YOU IN THE SNOW! CATCH THEM WITH MINTIES,” giggled the awful little thing.

  He leaned in and sniffed my face. His breath reeked of discount rum.

  Without pointing fingers at anybody, his accent seemed Scandinavian.

  “Good sir. We don’t want any trouble,” I said, recoiling from his rum breath and trying to “normalize the abnormal situation,” as we had been trained back at Collins House. “I am Ronan Boyle, detective of the Special Unit, this is my associate, Cadet Log MacDougal. I’m sure we can talk this over. I have many tasty whiskeys and tobacco on my belt, all for you to try, my friend.”

  “HA. NO! NO WHISKEY FOR MIG!” spat the little man, cursing in what was now definitely a Swedish accent. He jumped over to Log’s sack like a flying squirrel, the fabric under his arms catching the air. He sniffed Log’s face, frantic and excited. I could literally see his heartbeat speed up through his gelatinous skin.

  Log, in her wonderful style, tried to bite his head off.

  Sadly she missed. This was unfortunate, as she wouldn’t get another chance like that.

  “NAUGHTY! NAUGHTY KVINNA!” hissed the tiny man into Log’s face, revealing rows of piranha teeth. Even Log herself recoiled from the smell of his breath, which is interesting because Log loves rum and she can pound it like an Admiral Supreme Numero Uno* in the Leprechaun Royal Navy.

  “No biting little Mig! Any biting and the mänskligs go into Mig’s fine belly! YUM YUM,” he cackled as he tapped his belly and scampered off into the shadows.

  Log looked to me for help, but this was pointless, as I was also looking to her for help. “YUM YUM SOON!” said the rat man from the shadows.

  He slammed a door shut and bolted it from the other side.

  After a moment, Log said, “He seems nice,” because Log is the second-most hilarious person I know, after my guardian Dolores.

  “I don’t have a plan,” I said, “but I know that I don’t want to turn into whatever yum yum is.”

  “I think I can get out of this bag if I really try,” said Log, gritting her teeth and flexing her huge upper body. She elbowed and twisted like a musclebound caterpillar in its cocoon. The sack began to split a bit. My guess is that nobody had ever put a human being as strong as Log MacDougal into one of these sacks during their testing phase.

  This part took almost seven minutes, which is a detail that I could have left out, but have chosen not to. With a satisfying rrrrrriiipp, the sack burst, depositing Log to the floor with a wet crunch. She brushed herself off, grabbed the torch off of the wall, and examined my bag—a puzzled look on her face.

  “That’s creepy,” whispered Log, “so creepy.”

  “Get me out of this sack, quickly,” I said, trying not to panic, because when I panic, I often go into a hallucination about my favorite actress, Dame Judi Dench. It’s a mental condition that I am cursed with, in addition to several food allergies. And the claustrophobia thing, and some other stuff.

  “It’s not a sack you’re wrapped in, Ronan, it’s a stocking. A Christmas stocking.”

  I did not like this one bit. I started to panic. And then it happened:

  I was at the Cannes International Festival du Film with Dame Judi Dench. Dame Judi was doing an interview on the red carpet about the challenges of playing Queen Victoria, which she has done twice. Ah, leave it to Dame Judi to master two different interpretations of a character, two decades apart! The woman is a gem. The jewel in the crown of acting. And I’m standing next to her, and she reaches over and takes a huge sip off of my cola slushy, which is the best kind of slushy. And then she won’t stop, and I have to say, “Oi, leave some slushy for the rest of us, you tart!” And we laugh and laugh because we have this kind of fun casual relationship.

  “Hush!” whimpered a weak voice from the darkness, bringing me back from the fictional South of France to the cold reality of this dreadful mountain hut. “Hush and be still, beefies!* Don’t try to escape. It’s pointless. There are too many of these devils. They’ll eat you alive, make toys from yer bones. Never seen anything like ’em.”

  I scanned the darkness for the source of the voice. In the flicker of the torch light I could make out another prisoner pinned in a stocking to the opposite wall. He was the skinniest far darrig I had ever seen. Most far darrigs are furry red creatures with tusks, but this fellow had been hanging there on the wall for ages, it seemed. His tusks had yellowed, and his pale fur was falling out in patches.

  “They’re the Free Men of the Pole. Don’t call ’em elves. They hate that word so much.” He gestured with his snout to a pile of human and faerie folk bones lining the floor. “Ate ’em all, they did, while they was still kicking. They like their meat alive.”

  Log swung the torch in an arc, giving us both a better look at the bones strewn about. The far darrig’s voice trembled.

  “Don’t make a fuss and you’ll live. Keep yer head down, play dead. The Free Men of the Pole are not slaves to the Claus anymore, they don’t play around.”

  “Wait. The little monster thing? He’s one of . . . Santa’s elves?” I said.

  The far darrig shuddered. “DON’T SAY ELVES—FREE MEN! They been hiding out in these mountains for years. They escaped the Claus. Sailed south from the pole, leaving their brot
hers behind. A clurichaun named Oh So Hilarious Harold helped ’em escape into Tir Na Nog. Charged ’em a pretty penny, he did. Said he’d ferry them to the Undernog and a new life of freedom. But a big snow came, cut ’em off. Oh So Hilarious Harold fled—abandoning the little men here in the Steps. They got snowed in. It snowed for two human years. The little men went mental. Alone for years. Now the Free Men eat anything that they find; mountain goats, beefies. Even each other, as long as it’s alive. They say every day is their holiday now that they’re free from the clutches of the Claus. I beg you, play dead like ol’ Pierre here, and you might just live.”

  This was a lot of information.

  For starters, it turns out this far darrig was named Pierre. I’m glad he told us, as usually you have to guess the names of faerie folk, which takes ages and it didn’t seem that we would be alive for all that long. I would have been certain he was exaggerating about the Free Men, except that I was about to find out that, if anything, he was underselling the danger of the situation.

  From outside the hut came a ruckus and the sound of a bolt sliding open. In a nanosecond, Pierre the far darrig transformed himself into the most plausible corpse you have ever seen. He even started to smell rotten, and I did not know that far darrigs could do things like that. Log took Pierre’s cue and collapsed, sticking out her tongue and rolling back her eyes.

  Because I am an eejit, I moved a teensy bit slower than those two, leaving me as the only thing in the room that seemed to be alive.

  Mig hopped back in. He spotted Log, “dead” on the floor, and went ballistic.

  “WHAT HAPPEN TO KVINNA?” he hissed, sniffing her face. “BIG MEAT ON KVINNA! SO MUCH YUM YUM. YUM YUM MUST BE ALIVE!”

  Mig picked up a bone from the pile on the floor and poked Log’s face. He pulled at her eyelids. He licked his finger and stuck it in her ear, wriggling it around. Log didn’t move a muscle. Log is used to playing the leprechaun version of hide-and-seek, which can take months and sometimes involves faking your own death or controlling your heart rate until it is no longer perceivable by others.