Authors: Debbie Johnson
I was not only upside down; I was being carried. I twisted myself up as far as my abs would allow me, and saw the Morrigan’s red-and-white hair streaking down her back. I was over her wide shoulders, dangling in a fireman’s lift, and I could feel a tingling sensation as the blood started to move more freely around my body.
Carmel leaned down to my eye level and gave me a quick smile. Her scar was vivid, red and angry, stitched together with black thread. She looked like something from a Tim Burton film.
‘She’s awake!’ she piped, as she straightened up again. The Morrigan immediately dumped me to the ground, which happened to be a patch of scrappy grass, surrounded by wind-blown old crisp bags snagged in clumps of long-dead flowers.
I closed my eyes for a moment, clenching my eyelids shut and trying to regain my balance. When I snapped them back open, the birds were still there, blocking out most of the sky. Carmel was still grinning. And the Morrigan was staring down at me, now looking seven feet tall and built like the proverbial brick shithouse. She nudged me in the side with her massive biker boots, gently enough to break a couple of ribs, I should think.
‘Get up,’ she said. ‘It does not befit the Goddess to lie in discarded trash.’
Cow, I said. Silently.
‘It probably doesn’t befit the Goddess to be dumped there in the first place …’ I muttered, staggering to my feet. Minor defiance, but better than nothing at all, I supposed.
The Morrigan ignored me, and instead looked up at the riot of birds above us. She grinned – the first time I’d seen her crack a smile – and it transformed the sharp plains of her face from ‘scary but handsome’ into the realms of ‘knock-out beautiful’. No wonder she didn’t do it often – men would fall at her feet, and she’d get gunk on the soles of her boots as she crushed their puny skulls.
The smile, needless to say, wasn’t at the sight of me, hopping on one leg while I wiped mud and a half-eaten Snickers bar off my arse. The smile was for the birds.
She lifted up her hands and made a swirling gesture, like a conductor in front of an orchestra. The birds clouded and leaped in response, coming together to create a downward flurry of thrumming wind: like a tornado pointing to the ground, larger beasties at the top, cawing and honking and endlessly circling, and the tiny ones fluttering together at the bottom to form the spout.
The Morrigan flicked her fingers, like she was sprinkling water from them, and the flock immediately flew away, a single black mass scudding off into the distance, presumably to go back to eating worms, or building nests, or shitting on cars, or whatever it was birds did all day. I was glad to see them go. It had all been getting a bit Hitchcock. She chuckled and watched as they flew, like Mother Duck saying goodbye to her kids on the first day of school. I guess we all have our weaknesses.
I looked around me, trying to figure out where we were. I had no idea how long I’d been out, and I didn’t trust these Otherworldy types one bit when it came to transport. For all I knew, we could have jumped through a fairy portal and be in a back street of Mozambique, or about to take a front row at the Colosseum to watch some heavy-duty gladiator action.
Instead, I saw a dim, abandoned car park, cracked concrete, and a vast tower block looming above us in the grey half-light. Across the road were neat terraces, with well-kept front yards and brightly painted front doors. I could almost smell the Mersey whipping up towards us on the same wind that had been playing havoc with those crisp bags, and heard the hungry wail of gulls over the water.
‘Are we in Dingle?’ I asked Carmel.
‘Yup,’ she said, nodding. ‘And you got a lift the whole way.’
Great. Another dignified exit from … well, a highly embarrassing scene. As I recalled the way I’d behaved back in the apartment, I felt a fiery flush claim my cheeks. God. How awful. Bitch in heat indeed. I didn’t know what had come over me – maybe my lager had been spiked – but I was hoping it never happened again. At least not with an audience.
The Morrigan stamped away ahead of us, and used her mighty boots to kick open the door to the tower block. Once, it must have had some kind of intercom system, but that now hung in shredded wires from a small metal box. I didn’t know if that was her handiwork, or just the natural fate of a block of flats mid-regeneration.
The air was dank and chill inside, and the walls were decorated with graffiti of varying quality. The lighting was strip neon, flickering on and off over our heads, and the smell was akin to a male urinal. Old newspapers – the weekly free sheets that sometimes got dumped instead of delivered by enterprising youths – were rotting in a damp, mouldering pile, and the quiet rustling inside them led me to believe that a few four-legged residents had moved into a new des res.
Looking around at the silent, dim lobby, edged in grime and months of neglect, I immediately knew three things: that nobody human lived here any more; that the lifts wouldn’t be working; and that the Morrigan would most definitely be holed up on the top floor.
Some time later, I’d been proved right on all three counts. I was also, finally, catching up with the others. I’m pretty fit – for a mortal – but those two sprinted up the stairs (all twenty-two storeys of them) like superheroes heading for a cape sale. I needed to up my game, maybe invest in a Zumba video or something.
I arrived on the top floor huffing, puffing and even redder in the face, also itching to wash my hands from holding the scum-coated railing for the last few flights. I felt marginally peeved that I hadn’t been magically transformed into a superior physical being by all this supernatural crap, in the way Carmel seemed to have been. I got to save the world, and Carmel got to run up stairs really, really fast. Them’s the breaks, I suppose.
They’d thoughtfully left the door open, and I took a moment to catch my breath before I followed them in.
I found both in the living room, which was dingily lit and decorated in unsurpassed Eighties chic. A Florence and the Machine poster was tacked to the wall, and I wondered if it was a remnant from a previous inhabitant, or if the Morrigan had brought it with her. Maybe it was her daughter; they looked enough alike.
I wandered over to the window, and saw a row of pigeons outside on the ledge. Dozens of them were crammed together in a line, their feathery chests puffed out against the cold. Lookouts, Morrigan-style, I guessed. One whiff of the men in black, and they’d dive-bomb them all, in that special way that only city-tough street pigeons can. Avian ninjas to the rescue.
Further off, I could see the panorama of the city, and sunlight finally starting to spread its fingers over the steely surface of the river. I could see buses crawling over the streets, and the shapes of the two cathedrals and St John’s Tower piercing the sky. The flat was a tip, but the views were spectacular. I felt a surge of affection for the place well up inside me. My life would never be the same, but Liverpool, I hoped, always would be. I wanted to come back here when this was all over, ideally without a trail of assassins on my back. Maybe I’d get to interview that male Cher impersonator after all.
‘I have prepared you a place to sleep,’ said the Morrigan. She gestured at what looked like two army-issue sleeping bags on the floor, still rolled up and toggled. Ooh. Luxury. ‘For you too, Child of Menhit,’ she added, looking through narrow eyes at Carmel.
I had no idea what that meant, and I saw Carmel open her mouth to ask. She was silenced by one slight shake of the Morrigan’s head, and her lips clamped shut. I’d never seen her so subservient to anyone before, not even the editor at the
Gazette
. Especially not the editor, in fact. It wasn’t a criticism – I wouldn’t argue with the Morrigan, either. She put me to sleep and hefted me to the Dingle last time I tried it.
I stared at the vicious slash across Carmel’s cheek, and felt a wave of shame sweep over me. I’d dragged her into all of this, and she’d been marked for life as a result. Kevin’s eye. Carmel’s face. Luca’s almost everything. After last night’s performance, my own self-respect. Where would the list of casualties end?
She saw me looking, and her fingers flew up to touch the ragged edges of the wound, a trail of loose thread still hanging from one corner like a drooping comma.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t hurt. Connor sewed it up for me. He used TCP and everything, so chill out, OK? It’ll only make things worse if I have to worry about you worrying about me on top of everything else. I made my choices, and I don’t regret them.’
‘Of course she doesn’t – she has the heart of a warrior,’ said the Morrigan, bustling away in a crinkling carrier bag in the corner of the room. ‘And there will be more injuries and more death to come, Goddess, possibly your own – you need to get used to that. You are being – what’s the word you people use … a wuss. Your Champion isn’t. Learn from her, and find the courage I know you must have hidden within you.’
Now, as pep talks went, I’d had better – but I suspected she had a point. The issue, at least for me, was that everyone around me was getting hacked and thwacked all over the shop, whereas I was fine, bar the odd broken finger and a few nervous breakdowns. I felt as though the world around me, and everyone I ever cared about – admittedly an exclusive list – was being torn apart, all because of me.
Me, me, me … OK, she
definitely
had a point.
The Morrigan emerged from the carrier bag bearing plastic-wrapped sandwiches and bottles of water. She’d obviously managed a quick trip to the Tesco Metro on the way home, for which I was eternally grateful. I almost knocked her over in my eagerness to grab the food, and to abandon a thought process I wasn’t enjoying very much at all. There was time for self-analysis later – now was the time for stuffing my face. That was much less stressful.
We sat on the ground – bare, apart from a few tufts of purple carpet left behind when the last owner tore it from the floor – and ate. It was the best BLT I’d ever tasted, and we all remained silent, happily munching away, for a few blissful minutes. Nothing like being plunged into life or death situations every other hour to make you appreciate the simpler things.
‘Now,’ said the Morrigan, finishing her sandwich and throwing the plastic package back into the bag, ‘we will rest, and we will learn. You know who sent me?’
I nodded. Didn’t want to say it out loud, though – it sounded a bit up myself to say, ‘Yeah, God asked you to look after me, cos I’m so super-special and all.’
She nodded, as if pleased to see that I wasn’t a complete imbecile. Maybe just 95.5 per cent.
‘There are two nights until Samhain, when you must present yourself at Tara and make your choice,’ she said. ‘Do you understand me?’
She spoke slowly and clearly, enunciating every word, and I started to wonder if she really did think I was mentally impaired. And whether she might just be right.
‘Yes, against the odds, I’ve somehow managed to keep up with you so far … but, well, what if I just don’t go?’ I asked. ‘I don’t really want to.’
Carmel looked at me in exasperation, as though she just couldn’t believe what I was saying. I made an apologetic face in her direction – she thought I should go, I knew. Accept Gabriel. Bless the world. The whole nine yards. She’d bought into it all, and even had the scars to prove it.
‘That is not an option,’ replied the Morrigan, icily. ‘If you refuse to go, I will take you forcibly. Do you doubt my capacity to do such a thing?’
I looked at her, taller than most women even though she was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Her red-and-white hair was scattered like snakes over her powerful shoulders, and she was fixing me with a green glare that was brighter than the sunshine leaking through the grimy windows. Umm. No. I didn’t doubt that for a minute.
So much for Plan A: avoidance.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I know you could make me to go, and I was foolish even to ask. You’ve made yourself clear, and I’m not as stupid as you might think I am. I’ll go to Tara, OK? But once I get there, it’s up to me, right? Nobody can force me to do anything once we’re there? I may be a wuss, but I’m really unhappy about all this … forcing. And with Fionnula, and with Donn, there was mention of someone else taking me forcibly. Of taking away my choice.
‘I don’t know Gabriel well enough to understand where his boundaries lie, and I don’t want to leave it until it’s too late to find out. I’m told I have power – and I need to know how to use it if things seem to be heading in that direction. Or if I react like I did tonight, when I, uh, really wasn’t myself.’
That, of course, was an understatement. The way I’d felt just a few hours ago, I’d probably have accepted my school lollipop man as my eternal mate if it got me laid. I couldn’t let that happen at Tara, when of all times I would need a clear head.
The Morrigan nodded, thinking about what I’d said – and what I hadn’t said, for fear of being too crude. Old habits die hard.
‘That was the vampire’s fault – that and your lusty nature. It will not happen like that again if you guard against it,’ she said. ‘I can show you how.’
I swallowed back a laugh, and heard Carmel sniggering in the background. Lusty nature? Me? Abso-bloody-lutely hilarious. If only she knew.
‘What about the … other thing?’ I prompted, blushing. Must be my lusty nature getting the better of me again.
‘Men are feeble creatures,’ she finally replied, ‘dominated by petty needs and selfish drives. It has always been so, and in many ways your High King is no different. You must understand that he has been raised in a world where to take – women, wealth, territory – is seen as a sign of strength. And that this pairing, this mating, is what he has been destined to do for the whole of his existence. If he fails, then his life will be without meaning and without aim. He will most likely fall upon his own sword, rather than continue to live with such failure.’
There was a pause, as I tried to digest what she’d just told me. It was taking longer than the BLT.
‘What do you mean, fall upon his own sword? Like, commit hara-kiri? He’ll kill himself if I don’t say yes?’