Authors: Debbie Johnson
Again, good to know. And ignoring men’s genitals was something I’d always been especially good at, so I didn’t think that would be a problem. It did, however, provoke some very interesting dream sequences during the couple of hours’ sleep she allowed us.
Later, as we consumed yet more sandwiches, and Carmel once again phoned in sick to the newsroom, she explained what would happen next. Having kept me safe for the last day – apart from the hair thing – we would rejoin the others, and travel to Tara. I still wasn’t clear on how that would happen – Mr Ben-style or a trip to the airport – and she seemed unconcerned with the trivialities.
Travelling, she said, was a base concern for menial fools, and anyone with enough power about them could simply move themselves from A to B through sheer force of will.
I had no doubt at all that the Morrigan could do that – but I was a different matter. I was about a minus two on the goddess scale, with some definite room for improvement. Hence, just after midnight, I found myself sitting on the number 82 Arriva as it drew into the bus station at Paradise Street.
The journey had passed largely without incident – bar the Morrigan seeming tempted to decapitate a couple of security guards who got on wearing their all-black uniforms, and the fact that enormous flocks of birds had followed the bus for the whole journey. It was, without doubt, weird – seeing giant black clouds of them swirling outside the windows as we drove, but nobody else seemed to give it a second thought. What can I say? Liverpool crowds are hard to shock.
We disembarked with the usual ragtag of late-night souls and headed towards the apartment, marching through ice-cold drizzle and a fierce wind that plastered my hair to my face, hiding a ferocious blush that even I was embarrassed about having. Blushing about blushing. My lunacy knew no end.
I was feeling a bit nervous, if truth be told, about how I’d react when I saw Gabriel and Luca again. Other than with mind-searing awkwardness, obviously. The Morrigan had given me some Top Goddess Tips on how to control certain aspects of my nature, and I was going through them as we walked across town.
I was of the Earth, she’d said, and I was born with a default setting to be fertile and fecund and all that good stuff. Obviously something I’d missed out on in the intervening years, but I had a sense it was starting to kick in just a little bit now – if me trying to shag two blokes in public was anything to go by. Part of that had been the inevitable result of my feeding Luca, she thought, but part was also my natural instincts coming out after decades of suppression. Maybe if I’d spent my teenage years bonking my head off like Carmel had, it wouldn’t feel so overwhelming – but I hadn’t, and there wasn’t much I could do about it now. As far as I knew, retrospective slutdom wasn’t yet possible.
I needed to concentrate, to maintain my self-control. She’d explained all kinds of ways to do it – many of them revolving around reminding myself that all men were fundamentally flawed dickheads – but I suspected I had a better way, at least for the time being. I’d just go back to being regular old Lily: She Who Shall Not Be Touched. If I didn’t touch, I wouldn’t be tempted.
I was even walking with my hands shoved deep in my pockets, just in case I accidentally bumped into some passing person with a penis and was consumed by a sudden earth-shattering lust. If that happened, I might be tempted to mount them on the massive concrete steps of the shopping centre, and that just wouldn’t do – it was really cold, for starters. I’d get frostbite on my girl bits and they might drop off. I wouldn’t be much use as a fertility goddess then, would I?
I knew I was probably over-obsessing. I hadn’t seen a man who tickled my fancy at all, never mind one I wanted to straddle. But it was, I think, my own way of distracting me from the bigger issues. Like what was going to happen at Tara; whether Fintan was going to try to kill me; and, at the heart of it all, what I was going to do about Gabriel.
My feelings towards him had been as erratic as a blindfolded tightrope walker, drawing together a huge list of emotions that included hatred, fear, affection, gratitude, anger and a huge dollop of lust. I didn’t know what to make of it all – but I knew it was big. Too big to handle right then, if ever. It might be pathetic, but I was kind of hoping that if I ignored it for a bit, it might just go away.
We were walking along The Strand by the waterfront when they first noticed something was wrong. Carmel had been busily quizzing the Morrigan about her various battle techniques – as girls will do – and both of them had been happily and quite correctly ignoring me as I bumbled along at their side, chewing my lip and muttering like I was their autistic stepdaughter.
We were within the moon-cast shadows of the Liver Birds when they both suddenly stopped, their whole bodies on the high-alert mode that I could at least now recognise, if not share. They stood statue-still, nostrils flaring, before their eyes met in a way that clearly held some warrior-shit significance.
Carmel took a small, glinting knife from her coat pocket, choosing it over the larger sword that I knew she had hidden in her jacket. She flicked it open in a way that suggested she’d been practising, and the Morrigan flung aside the swoop of her leather to heft out a huge sword half as long as her leg. I’d had no idea she’d been carrying it with her, and her easy stride had showed no signs – that would be centuries of experience for you, I expect.
My eyes flickered between the two of them, and I took a deep breath – I knew what was coming next, and I wasn’t going to like it.
‘Run!’ yelled Carmel.
She was immediately away, sprinting after the Morrigan, who was already disappearing off into the darkness of Water Street.
I legged it as fast as I could, following the two of them down by the side of the Liver Buildings, weaving through parked cars and around ornate cast-iron lamp posts, pounding in their footsteps until we reached the wide stretch of paving in front of the river.
There’s a long boulevard behind the Liver Buildings, leading from the artily stylish concrete box of the Museum of Liverpool down to the cruise terminal and a long line of office blocks. At that time of night, there should be nothing there. Workers have gone home to watch the telly and make their packed lunches for the next day; tourists are watching Beatles tribute acts in Mathew Street, and the ferries have long since stopped running.
It should be empty. It should be deserted. The river should be roiling and churning alone in the moonlight, watched only by the beady eyes of the Liver Birds and the occasional passing drunk.
Instead, the whole promenade was pulsating with bodies, what looked like hundreds of them, writhing and screaming and fighting. The din was brutal: shrieks of pain and cries of rage and the constant underlying clanging of metal on metal, and the dull, wet thud of steel on flesh. All of it overridden by the gale-force winds howling up towards us from the might of an angry river.
I scrambled up on to the railing along the riverside, bracing myself against the tug of the wind, giving myself the extra height to see what was going on. The lighting was dim, scattered street lamps and cloud-covered moondust shining down on the scene, striping everything a sickly shade of gold.
I dragged my hair back from my eyes, and gazed ahead. As far as I could see, all along the waterfront, there was nothing but battle. Fintan’s men in black were camouflaged in the night air, but as cloud scudded away across the yellow of the moon, I saw them – so bloody many of them. Like an army of vicious ants, hacking and yelling and stomping and moving together, so many it looked like the road had turned black and started to roll like fresh tar.
I spotted Finn, sword raised above his head, whirling around like a mini tornado, making up for his lack of height with his huge strength. As he spun, the sword sliced and diced, and I saw skin and blood flying, his face splattered with it as his enemies fell screaming to their knees at his feet.
Connor and Kevin were back to back, like some deranged parody of a school three-legged race, swords flying through the night air as they manoeuvred. There was dark liquid flowing over Connor’s face, and although it wasn’t light enough to see, I knew it was blood. His blood or someone else’s, I couldn’t tell.
The vampires were slithering low to the ground, a lithe, undulating pack of teeth and muscle. They were taking men down by their knees and setting on them like hounds, ripping and tearing at their flesh with their fangs. A flurry of scuffling black scurried towards the glow of a lamp, like the rugby scrum from hell. I saw Isabella’s beautiful black head rear up. Her face was distorted with rage and hunger, and what looked like a torn-off ear was flapping from her mouth, still dripping and oozing. She shook it from side to side, like a cat worrying a bird, then spat it out, diving back down to go for more.
I almost gagged at the sight, and that’s when the smell hit me: the rotten stink of death and blood and pain and shit. I clenched my eyes tightly shut, trying to stop myself from puking, fainting, or just plain losing my balance and tumbling head first into the Mersey. I’d been in there once this week, and that was quite enough for anyone.
Carmel was at my side, knife in hand, her whole body thrumming with the need to throw herself into the carnage. Her eyes were huge, whisky-coloured pools of longing. What I saw physically sickened me – but I could see it called to her in a way I’d never understand.
The Morrigan grabbed hold of Carmel, shaking her by the shoulders to drag her gaze away from the battle and back to her face.
‘Your job is to guard her! Keep her safe until I return, or your life will be forfeit! Do you understand?’
She shook her even harder with every word, until Carmel’s curly black hair was jiggling, and the lust in her expression faded. Lust. Seemed a strange word to use, but it was the right one – because what I’d seen in her eyes was more lustful than any look I’d ever seen her give to a man. God, what had I done to her?
Carmel nodded vigorously, and pulled away from the Morrigan’s bone-crunching grip.
‘Yes, I understand! I am her Champion and I will remain at her side until the Dark Day comes!’ she replied.
‘We pray that is not yet upon us,’ murmured the Morrigan, turning to look up at me. ‘And you, child – you stay out of it!’ she commanded, pointing a long finger at my face.
With that, she glanced once more at the devastation unfolding before us. As far as we could see, there were black-clothed men, all of them advancing steadily on the group that stood at the heart of the seething mass. The group that could never stand against them, no matter how brave, how skilled, how vicious they were.
The Morrigan frowned, then ran, hair and black leather streaming behind her as she pounded off in the opposite direction. I felt disappointment scythe through me: she was the baddest of the bad, the ass-kicker to end them all, the only one who could help – and she’d abandoned us. The Morrigan, the Harbinger of Death, had run away into the night.
I forced myself to look back at the fight. To hear the terrible sounds, and smell the terrible smells, and see the way that oil-black swell of the Faidh was pressing ever nearer to people I knew. People I cared about. People who were willing to die to save me.
I didn’t want to look back – but I had to. Because I needed to know where he was, if he was safe … if he was even still alive.
‘Gabriel!’ I shrieked, standing as high as I could on the railing, feeling the wind steal my words and the cold spray of the river water leap up to slap my face, icy fingers telling me to wake up, grow up, man up. Gerra grip, girl, I heard, in the quiet, rasping tones of Coleen as she lay dying in her hospital bed. Get a grip and stop all of this death. You were born to give life – and all you’ve done so far is look on and weep as people die.
There was an almighty howl in the dead centre of the war raging in front of me, and an explosion of bodies flew into the sky. Six, seven, maybe eight of them – black-clad and limp, thrown up and over the heads of the crowd in a sudden arc, windmilling limbs, flying for yards before thudding down, landing on hard ground or on the heads of their fellow soldiers, crushing down whole screaming crowds.
He emerged from the pack, roaring my name.
So much taller. So much bigger. So much scarier.
Gabriel.
He’d created a temporary vacuum around him, but it took seconds for more men in black to fill it. They surged forwards, surrounding him, swords glinting, pressing closer and closer until all I could see of him was his head and shoulders, staring out and looking for me.
His mighty arms worked as he searched, his clawed hands tearing and searing and ripping flesh from bone. Some of the blades that lunged in his direction hit home, and I could see the gashes open up on his skin – across his chest, his forearm, his neck. Still he searched, yelling ‘Lily!’ over and over again in a voice that boomed over the sonic drone of the wind and the battle and the death.
I could see him weakening, and more of his precious blood flowing. Kevin and Connor were working their way towards him, trying to protect their king, but they were too far away. They wouldn’t reach him in time. There were too many of them – swarming over Gabriel like cockroaches now, trying to drag him back down. Two were hanging off his neck, climbing around his shoulders, attempting to hold his arms still so the others could attack.
He flung them off like toys, only to be faced with more. He was huge, vast. Twisted and vicious and ugly and magnificent, all at the same time. But there were too many of them. He was going down, inch by bloody inch he was going down. One of the Faidh used the pommel of his sword to hit him repeatedly in the face, and blood spattered from his nose as he staggered backwards, dazed and blinded.
Sensing his weakness they flew, a tide of oncoming death, towards him, screaming curses and stabbing blades and kicking him over and over again until he started to stumble, to topple back in giant, shuddering steps. If he fell, they’d have him, I knew. Even he couldn’t fight off this many – not with his magic, not with his claws, not even with the Sword of Lugh, which he was trying to wield as the black wave drowned him.