The Only Gold Read online

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  Red Rose Publishing

  www.redrosepublishing.com

  Copyright ©2007 by Phippa Bennett

  First published in 2008-03-27, 2008

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  A little bit about the author:

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  The Only Gold

  By

  Pippa Bennett

  Dedication

  To Sharon:

  Thanks for the inspiration!

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The Only Gold by Pippa Bennett

  Red Rose Publishing

  Copyright© 2007 Pippa Bennett

  ISBN: 978-1-60435-143-9

  ISBN: 1-60435-143-8

  Cover Artist: Celia Kyle

  Editor: Belle

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. Due to copyright laws you cannot trade, sell or give any ebooks away.

  Red Rose Publishing

  www.redrosepublishing.com

  Forestport, NY 13338

  The Only Gold

  By

  Pippa Bennett

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter One

  St. Patrick's Day is an enchanted time—a day to begin transforming winter's dreams into summer's magic.—Adrienne Cook

  "Hey, Riordan, you're Irish, ain't ya?” Blond and buff, Christoffer Magnuson waved his gigantic hand in front of Eithne Riordan's face as she stooped over the water cooler to get a drink. “How come you aren't wearing green?

  Eithne hated this sort of thing. Every damned year she went through it. “Chris, I'm a citizen of the United States. Yes, my family was Irish. Yes, my name is Irish. No, I don't believe in “the little people.” No, I don't believe in pots of gold at the end of rainbows. And I don't wear green on St. Patrick's Day."

  "Aw, come on, Eithne,” Chris still pronounced her name eth-NEE, despite the hundreds of times she'd told him it was et-NA, “Come with me to O'Fallon's after work and have a Guinness or a green beer. I'll even buy."

  "The answer is no. And if you put a hand out to pinch me, Chris, I'll sue you for sexual harassment. I swear to God, I will."

  "Jeez, woman. Take the stick out of your a.... “Chris’ comment trailed off as Harvey Henry, their boss, walked up. Harvey was short, fat and red of face. He wheezed from a lifetime of living with a wife who loved long-haired cats.

  "Are we working today, people? Or are you practicing for the big sundown parade?” Harvey mouthed the stump of a cigar. The higher-ups had made him stop smoking them in the office after Eithne complained.

  Chris vanished like the proverbial leprechaun. How a man that massive could move so swiftly and silently always freaked Eithne out. It figured he'd leave her to face Harvey alone.

  Damn you, Chris, she thought. Oh well, who counted on you, anyway....

  "The Far Side Blue account is done, but the Rider, Roper and Hickok ledger is seventeen cents off. I should have it found in the next hour. If you don't want it to come up off again, give it to me first, instead of Chris.” Eithne stared into Harvey's blurry brown eyes.

  Harvey chewed his cigar, his expression thoughtful. “You know, I could like you, Riordan. You always look nice, dress nice, even if it is a little on the plain side. And you do good accounting work. Very thorough. But, I gotta say so, kid; you got an attitude that would do a wolverine proud."

  "I'm not here to win popularity contests, Harve. I'm here to earn my daily bread."

  "Ain't we all. But, mark my words, someday that snippy belligerence you cultivate is going to come back and bite you on the buns. Say, it's St. Patrick's Day. Why aren't you wearing green?"

  "Oh, mother of God,” she muttered. Eithne stalked toward her desk. “I don't believe in good luck. I believe in hard work. And I don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day."

  The rest of the day passed without further event. Eithne left the offices of Jefferson, Whiteside and Funke at precisely ten minutes after five o'clock. It was tax time, so she'd come in at three A.M. just to be sure she could be clear of downtown before the blasted sundown parade began.

  She paused on the sidewalk to take a deep breath of the crisp spring air. Jonquils glowed golden in the setting sun, and pink and blue hyacinths gave off their heady perfume. Chris came up beside her.

  "Sure you won't take me up on that beer?"

  "After you abandoned me to Harvey's tender mercies? You couldn't persuade me to go out with you now, Chris, if you kissed the Blarney Stone. Especially on St. Patrick's Day."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter Two

  Eithne strode to the parking lot, leaving him to stand alone. She got in her neat little Ford Taurus, plugged in a CD of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and drove to the YMCA. There she worked twenty minutes on the ellipticals, then got on the treadmill. She wore a disc player and headphones, this time choosing Mozart's The Magic Flute, and she opened a biography of Condoleezza Rice. She began reading and walking at a brisk pace.

  Half an hour later, she got off the machine, pausing to wipe her face with a towel. Glancing toward the mirror, she frowned in critical scrutiny. With her black hair pulled back, her features looked plain. Her nose was too large, her mouth too wide, her chin too narrow and her cheeks too plump. Her eyes were her best facial feature, being a clear deep blue. Her fair skin completed the “Black Irish” coloring. The gym lights and the mirror washed her out and emphasized the purple circles under her eyes.

  Eithne continued her perusal. No matter how much she exercised, she couldn't lose the basic rounded contours of her breasts and hips. She wasn't fat.

  Hell, she couldn't even qualify for pleasingly plump, but she was still round. It would take more than Miss Clairol and a diet to transform her into Lauren Hutton, her favorite model of all time. It would take a miracle and six more inches in height. She sighed. Well, at least she wasn't stupid enough to be working off the calories from a pint of Guinness Stout.

  A quick shower, a change into practical cotton underwear and sweats, and it was back to the car. This time the music was “The Song of the Volga Boatmen."

  A rapid trip across the city on the freeway flyover, and Eithne pulled into the driveway of her home in an older section of town. Her house had been built in 1919, and it reflected the solidity of its time. Two-storied, it had way too much room for one person, but Eithne loved it with all the passion she had in her. Its restoration had been her pride and joy.

  Parking her car in the garage, she got out and walked up the bricks she had spent three back-breaking days laying, toward her long front porch. A black cat bounded out of the shrubbery and walked toward her, tail held high in greeting.

  "Beat it, you mooch,” she told it. The cat ignored her, weaving in and out of her ankles in the timeless feline dance. Eithne stumbled and swore. “Blast it,
Mephistopheles. You're gonna break my leg."

  The cat belonged to her neighbors. Eithne had never forgiven him for appearing at her door in the middle of a thunderstorm, claiming to be starving. She had taken him in and even driven to the discount store in the middle of a rock-soaker to buy a litter box, litter and cat food. The next morning she had discovered he belonged to the people next door. The cat contraptions had gone into her trash cart post haste.

  Not that any of her actions had slowed Meph down any. He still frequented her yard and porch, professing his undying affection and trying to weasel her out of tuna. Typical man. “Love me, baby, but don't rely on me.” She shooed him away again and again as she made her way to her door.

  As she reached the steps, her pace slowed. Fear pounded over her. Someone was sitting in the long swing on her porch. Her neighborhood was a good one, but in the city there was no such thing as “crime-free.” She clutched her house keys tight, glad of her long habit of threading them through the spaces between her fingers. Damn, this was it! Tomorrow she was making arrangements to have motion detector lighting put in whether she could afford it or not.

  The shadow stood, resolving itself into the tall lanky form of a man. Eithne's breath left her in a long relieved sigh. She'd know that figure anywhere. Her father. He stepped toward her, his huge hands held out in greeting.

  "Ah, there's my sweet colleen,” he said.

  Eithne brushed past him, ignoring his outstretched hands. Placing her back against her storm door she regarded him with wary disdain. “What do you want, Daddy?"

  James Riordan stuck his fists in his pockets and cocked his shoulder in an arrogant stance. At six feet, four inches there was a lot of James to cock. “I want to take my daughter out to dinner. Is that a crime now?"

  "I'm sure you'd know a lot more about crime than me, Daddy."

  "That's not fair, Eithne. I was acquitted."

  "Only because Mother refused to testify against you."

  "That's not true. There was no evidence. They didn't have a case. They didn't have a case because I didn't do it."

  The keys bit into the palm of her hand. She repeated her earlier question. “What do you want?"

  "I told you. I want to take you to dinner. Holy Mary, Eithne! It's a beautiful day; a day of celebration. Can't we put our differences aside?"

  "My mother cried for years over you. Years! I'd come home from school and find her crying on the couch. Every St. Patrick's Day, I'd find her, clutching some stupid foil shamrock and sobbing. She wore herself out working and crying."

  James tossed his dark head. Chagrin and sorrow shone in his blue eyes. “It's true I have a lot to answer for. But how am I supposed to do it, if you won't listen to me?"

  "Daddy, I'd think you'd know by now, I have no use for you and your stories. No use for faeries and goblins and ‘the wee folk.’ No use for St. Patrick's Day or anything else that's Irish. I spit on all things Irish! You, the leprechauns, the shamrocks, even the good saint himself!” She drew up her own shoulders and worked a gob of saliva into her mouth.

  Eithne suited action to words and spat. “There! Is that ‘auld Sod’ enough for you, Daddy? Or do you need something else."

  Hurt rode the craggy lines of his face. “For shame, Eithne Regan! Your quarrel is with me, not the Good People or the blesséd Saint. No good will come of vilifying them."

  "I'm going inside now, Daddy. You have five minutes to get off the porch before I call the police."

  James stalked past her and headed down the steps. “Save your coppers. You won't be needing them. Not this time, at any rate."

  He vanished into the night. Eithne's lower lip trembled. She sucked in a deep breath. She would not cry! She would not be like her mother!

  James Riordan would never get any tears from her. She turned to the door, intending to put her key in the lock.

  The form of the door blurred before her. Her head whirled, and her hands shook. It must be from the emotion and tiredness and a lack of food. She just needed to get inside to the kitchen, drink a glass of milk and fix the chicken, broccoli and ramen noodle dish she had planned for her supper.

  The keys fell from her hand. Her gym bag followed them, suddenly too heavy to hold. Eithne swayed and stumbled. When in the hell did her porch become enclosed in fog? A stomach-wrenching sensation swept over her. Her skin crawled along her bones. The frame of her door loomed over her. She could see the light of the door bell, it rode high above her like a beckoning star, then it vanished into a sudden blackness.

  For some reason the blackness smelled like a locker room. Thick formless stuff enclosed her. It felt like fabric to her struggling hands. She tugged and hauled it up by the handful, fighting the weight of the junk. Air, she had to have air, or she was going to lose her mind. At last the encapsulating stuff fell away, and Eithne could swallow air in great, gasping gulps.

  A chill breeze wafted around her. To her disbelief, she realized she was stark, staring naked. Not only was she naked, she was standing inside a gigantic sneaker. She put her hands against the leather curve of the shoe's entrance. It felt real enough.

  Eithne pinched herself. It hurt real enough. Clambering over the side, she landed on the surface below the shoe. It spread before her, a wide, shiny gray. She turned in a circle. Behind her lay a mountain of fabric that her mind refused to resolve into the sweat suit she had been wearing.

  She stood on her front porch, stripped to the spring evening and wondered if this experience was all some bizarre dream. That wonderment almost became her undoing. An enormous shadow prowled the night, slipping up on her on silent feet. The hot draft of its breath tickled her hair, warning her of its presence. Eithne spun around and looked up into a gargantuan muzzle.

  "God Almighty!” she swore.

  White whiskers stiff as broom straws stood out around it. Lambent yellow and black orbs shone like small moons on either side of a triangular velvet nose. Teeth almost as long as her forearm glistened against the pink of a bottomless maw and a curling barbed tongue. A yowl split the atmosphere with the force of a sonic boom, sending mindless terror crashing through her cataleptic brain.

  Eithne screamed and ran. A paw studded with hard, horn scimitars thudded against the floor behind her. The slats of the wooden porch railing towered before her. She shinnied through two of them. Before her lay nothing but open space and the budding limbs of the forsythia hedge that ran the length of her front porch. Behind her the cat yowled once again. Without a second thought Eithne launched herself into the void.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter Three

  Pain surrounded her as she tumbled downward, bouncing off the hard, brittle bush limbs. A gory vision of being impaled and helpless before the marauding Mephistopheles swept through her. She tried to draw her arms and legs into a ball, to make herself as small and round as possible. She tucked her head down in remembrance of some long-past gymnastics lesson.

  Her landing wouldn't have earned her any points with Olympic judges. Awkward and rigid, it exploded through her with the force of a grenade. She lay against the rough bark mulch of the flowerbed, winded and hurting. She had only enough time to congratulate herself that she was still alive.

  Undaunted by her feat, Meph had followed her off the porch. His feet hit the greening grass like the knell of doom. He prowled back and forth in front of the bushes, alert to her tiniest move.

  Eithne sat frozen until a dark, knife-ended pad the size of a tree trunk slithered between the branches, fishing for prey. She stood and skittered along the bricks, making for the steps. She had the sense to know if she ran into the open her life would come to an end.

  Eithne knew of a crack that ran between the cement of the steps and the bricks of the porch. She had always meant to seal it up. For the first time in her life Eithne thanked God for procrastination.

  She heard the cat keep pace alongside her. About four inches of uncovered space existed between the bushes and the crack. If she didn't cover it b
efore Meph arrived, nothing else would matter. The edge of the forsythia hovered in her vision.

  Ignoring the burning anguish and the paralyzing doubt, Eithne reached deep inside herself and called on everything she had. The abyss of the crack rose, Stygian and enticing.

  She flung her body into it, landing on her knees and scrambling forward into its depths. She hit a wall. Darker against the darkness, the cat's paw shot in after her, making her skin dimple with the wind of its passing. Meph growled in annoyance at his miss.

  Desperate, she felt with her hands, seeking a way out. Her fingers found an opening. She stood and almost screamed in disappointment. The way was narrow, maybe too narrow. Meph growled again, and Eithne crammed herself into the split. Her breasts and belly, back and buttocks shrieked in protest as the tender skin scraped against the rough edges. Flame rolled across her hip as Mephistopheles scored her with one razor claw. Shoving hard, Eithne won through, stumbling forward in the inky obscurity.

  She heard the angry hissing and the slamming scrapes as the cat voiced his vexation. Trembling she inched forward, pausing to catch her breath when she was certain he could not reach her. Now what? She had no idea how far she could go before the way ended in the Grand Canyon of her basement. God alone knew what other everyday creatures lurked in the lightlessness, transformed into monsters by the miniscule matter of size.

  She shuddered at the thought of cockroaches the size of Great Danes and pill bugs big enough to use as soccer balls. Eithne bent forward, placing her hands on her knees and drawing even breaths. Her head cleared a little and she straightened. In the blackness before her a light flickered. At first she thought her eyes were playing tricks upon her, but, no, there it was dancing toward her, a ball of cold blue flame.

  About the size of a hard ball, the fireball halted before her, hovering in the air at about the level of her chest. Eithne reached out to touch it, but it skipped away in an almost reproachful manner. It moved forward, coaxing her to follow it. Deciding that tagging along after a neon baseball was just one more piece of craziness in a crazy night, she moved after it.