Completely Folk'd Page 13

  A hand found his. He was pulled to his feet. His back felt wet and warm and he heard the spatter of his blood hitting the floorboards. He was dimly aware that wasn’t good.

  ‘You came,’ Maggie sobbed.

  He wanted to reply, to hold her, to do more than that perhaps, but there wasn’t time. The wasp-faerie was only winded, knocked off-balance and, if anything, enraged by the unexpected setback. Steve took the flail from Maggie’s unresisting fingers and swung it meaningfully in the air, forcing his adversary to back up a few feet, darting back and forth, awaiting its chance to strike. Drool fell from its mouth in copious quantities as it eyed them hungrily.

  ‘What is it?’ Maggie wailed. ‘They’re everywhere, Steve … what is it, what is it, what is it?’

  Steve didn’t reply. He took a long step to his left and brandished the flail threateningly, causing the wasp-faerie to move few feet to the right. Right over the attic trapdoor.

  Larka’s massive head surged from below like the shark on the Jaws poster, swallowing the oversized insect as far as its thorax before clamping down, neatly severing the wasp-faerie in two. It had time for one, final surprised zzzzzztttt? before its upper half thudded to the attic floor, thin wings flapping uselessly in death.

  Seeing this, Steve resisted the urge to gather Maggie in his arms, instead crossing to the skylight and closing it firmly, drawing the curtains back. Only when this was done did he walk towards her and embrace her, kissing her hair, her forehead, her lips over and over, telling her it was all right, it was dead now, it was dead and everything was going to be all right.

  ‘I was driving away from Ellie’s house,’ she said, when she had finally composed herself, ‘And I don’t know, Steve, something happened. All these memories washed up on me. I was with Danny for the last two days, as if we were a couple? As if we’d always been a couple. And you – you were with Ellie – you had a baby with Ellie – how’s that even possible?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘I went back to Ellie’s house, but you’d gone. So I came here. I wanted to talk to you. I needed to see you. Flanagan let me in then went back to his room. There was this light from somewhere over there …’ she pointed to the blocked-up skylight window, indicating the city centre., ‘A few minutes later, I started hearing all these screams. I was scared. And the TV, most of the stations went out except the local ones. Have you seen what’s happening, Steve? They’re saying everything beyond Ireland, has gone. Gone. How can that happen?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘And I–’

  ‘Maggie?’ he said gently. When she was upset like this, there was a special key you had to talk in to get her attention. He slipped into it without a second thought.

  She focussed on him then, seeing him, properly, for the first time. Her mouth made an O of horror.

  ‘Steve?’ she said. No sooner did his name tumble from her mouth than he felt whatever strength was holding him upright give way. He slumped, but didn’t fall – she supported his weight against her.

  ‘Is he injured?’ Larka called from below. ‘Bring him down. I can tend to him.’

  ‘Larka,’ Steve croaked. His strength was failing fast. The drugs, the adrenalin, all of it was wearing off.

  Through the concern, Maggie had time to look puzzled. The unseen voice that had wafted up from below sounded feminine, if a touch deep. Thus far, all she’d seen down there was a massive wolf that had just eaten an oversized wasp hell-bent on murdering them both.

  ‘Larka? Friend of yours?’ she asked.

  Steve was smiling as he slipped into unconsciousness.

  OUTSIDE LIRCOM TOWER, NOW

  ‘My hole,’ said Danny, summing up.

  Dother looked at him almost pityingly. ‘You think I’m making this up? Yes, you’re right, I am. Dian didn’t possess the body of Ellie’s grandfather in a pathetically misguided attempt to become human. Because if he did, of course, that would mean that not only is your son the latest in the loooooooooong line of Morrigans, he’s also …’

  ‘Directly descended from Carman.’

  ‘And I am too,’ Ellie said.

  ‘You got it, niece,’ Dother said brightly, seeming to revel in their numb horror. ‘Never mind, Danny. Gives you some justification for how you used to think of her ones.’

  Ellie’s hands bunched into fists. Dother saw this, but merely laughed and stepped backwards, waving his arms in a placatory gesture. ‘Cheap shot,’ he admitted. ‘But hey, if your mother Christens you “Evil”, let’s see how fuckin’ good you turn out. Now, I’m not so keen on sticking around for the bloodbath to come, so I think I’ll be off. I’d say best of luck, but of course, I despise you utterly! Say hello to my great-nephew though, won’t you? Such a cute widda nose on him. Slán!’

  He crouched, and his form rippled slightly, his back legs elongating to lupine proportions. In only a few bounds, he was fifty yards away and accelerating fast.

  If Dother’s revelation was a shock to him, he could only imagine how Ellie must be feeling. Her family was descended from the monsters that had caused all of this misery. Her son – their son – had Carman’s blood in his veins. The Sword felt heavy, his hands huge and clumsy. His grandfather and father had forced Dian from his human host. For whatever reasons, however rightly or wrongly, they had robbed two young boys of the only father they’d ever known.

  That, then, was why Dermot had done what he’d done. Danny wasn’t sure if the motive made him feel any better. He had hoped that his father’s old partner had been bewitched somehow, hadn’t been in his right mind. But maybe he had – maybe Dian had influenced him, turned his anger up by a few million degrees. It was his superpower after all.

  Fuck Dermot, Danny thought suddenly. What must Ellie be going through? She was staring after Dother, her back turned to Danny. He reached out toward her, unsure of what he was going to say to try and make sense of all of this madness–

  ‘Right,’ she said abruptly, turning on her heel. There was no ocean of pain in her eyes, no soul-searching. Nothing but determination that could have cracked rocks. ‘’Mon, let’s go.’

  ‘Go?’

  She gestured to the interior of the circle. ‘In. It’s time, Danny. We’re gettin’ our son back, me and you.’

  ‘But–’

  ‘I know,’ she cut him off. ‘I heard him and I believed him, which amazes me. So I’m descended from’ – and her voice wavered slightly, almost with embarrassment – ‘from an evil Greek witch-goddess. So my – our – son is too. So what?’

  ‘But–’

  ‘But what?’

  Danny stopped to consider his options – enter Carman’s arena for the final showdown with the most powerful witch in this or any other realm; or stay out here and try to explain to his girlfriend how her family background in any way made the slightest bit of difference to how he felt about her. How he felt about his son.

  Especially when, quite simply, it hadn’t changed a thing.

  ‘But nothing,’ he replied, hands tightening around the Sword once more as he felt the heaviness drop from his shoulders. As they walked under the great arches of stone, he found himself wishing that he had more than just one weapon at his disposal, no matter how formidable the Sword might prove.

  When her hand found his, and their fingers interlaced, he was grateful that someone, somewhere, was still in the wish-granting business.

  *

  ‘He’s coming,’ Carman said.

  ‘I’m ready,’ Luke replied. Fully-grown, every inch the perfect warrior, he held aloft a black sword that was a twin for the one his father carried in all but hue. ‘I’m ready, Mitéra. I want to see him. I wish to see the look on his face as I end his life.’

  Carman smiled. ‘Consider it granted.’

  The Battle

  BELGRAVIA AVENUE, BELFAST, NOW

  The room smelled into focus. For a moment, Steve baulked at this: after years of sneering at Danny’s ‘gift’ of synaesthesia, was it
pleasing whatever passed for the gods out there to make it contagious?

  No. He wasn’t suddenly seeing through his nostrils or smelling through his arse – God forbid – or whatever the fuck it was Danny did. It was simply that, upon returning from consciousness, his senses had reactivated out of sequence – smell first. That could only mean one thing. He opened his eyes and his suspicions were confirmed.

  ‘All right?’ Flan said.

  He was in Flan’s bedroom.

  ‘Steve? You’re awake?’ Maggie’s voice came from outside the room.

  ‘Maggie?’ he called. ‘Maggie, you’re all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Let me see you.’

  ‘Erm,’ Maggie responded. She stuck her head round the door and gave him a meaningful look, trying to look at her own nose as she did so, which unfortunately only made her look bog eyed. ‘Now that you’re all right again, could you come out?’ she suggested.

  He got to his feet and squeezed past Flan who, to Steve’s surprise, was booting up the Playstation. ‘Lad?’ he said. ‘You comin’ with us, like?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘What?’ Steve exploded. ‘The world’s gone to fuck! There’s things roaming about the streets! People are dyin’ all over the fuckin’ place! You’re just gonna sit here and play fuckin’ Grand Theft Auto are ya, aye?’

  ‘Aye,’ Flan nodded. ‘All that shit outside sounds fuckin’ trunks, no harm. I’ll give it a miss. You knock yerself out with Maggie there but, see if you can get her to show you the oul beard again, sure.’

  ‘Show me the–’ Steve repeated in astonishment. Flan took his reaction for puzzlement.

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘The oul whale’s ear, you know what I mean. She’s still up for it, I think, and there’s plenty of rooms up the stairs, like. Stick the sheets in the wee washbasket afterwards will ye?’

  There was no real response to this. Steve settled for exiting the room and closing the door behind him, shaking his head in wonder as he did so, because some part of him knew that, not so very long ago, he’d have been doing the same as his friend and burying his head in the sand. Sticking to the familiar. Now, look at him – charging about a city turned into a warzone. What had happened? What had changed?

  ‘Hey,’ Maggie whispered in his ear. She’d been waiting for him in the doorway to the sitting room and as he passed, she grabbed him and snogged him, a proper full-on tongue-melter that left him breathless. It was only out of a desire for oxygen that he reluctantly broke the kiss.

  ‘You came when I asked,’ she said.

  ‘You came looking for me first,’ he pointed out.

  Behind Maggie lurked a welcome shape. Maggie beamed, ‘Larka fixed you.’

  ‘A pleasure,’ Larka rumbled.

  ‘How?’ Steve asked, patting himself. He was moving without pain, and the fogginess of the painkillers was also gone. In fact, he felt better than he had in years. ‘How did you do it? And um, not to sound ungrateful, but why didn’t you do it before? When we first met? Why let me go and drug myself to fuck if you could have just magicked me well again?’

  ‘It is complicated,’ she replied. Steve was far from an expert on the body language of sentient wolves, but even he could sense that Larka was troubled. He felt a sudden chill down his spine. Healing of the sort she’d performed on him was nothing short of miraculous. Left to their own devices, the accumulated wounds – both internal and external – would probably have left him in serious danger. It had only been the cocktail of painkillers he’d consumed in the chemist that had allowed him to ignore the effects for as long as he had.

  Was there to be a price for the miracles she’d performed? And if there was, what was it?

  ‘Larka’s been telling me what’s going on,’ Maggie continued. It seemed she hadn’t registered the potentially ominous reason for Larka’s reluctance to elaborate. Steve didn’t press it. Perhaps now wasn’t the time.

  ‘Has she, aye?’ he said, surprised. He looked at Larka. ‘Wouldn’t tell me an’ all, would ye?’

  ‘It’s the Merging,’ Larka said. ‘For thousands of years our world and yours have been separated. That is ending, tonight.’

  ‘What does all of this have to do with Danny?’ he asked.

  ‘He is the Morrigan,’ she replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘Carman, our que– … former queen,’ Larka amended, ‘knows that for the Merging to be complete, the Morrigan’s line must be destroyed.’

  ‘She’s going to kill him?’

  Larka hesitated. ‘Protections exist on the line,’ was all she would say in return. ‘Deep magic. It would be best – for her – if the line destroyed itself. If she was able to influence others to do the job for her.’

  ‘Others? Like who?’

  ‘Most likely, those of his own line. That way, blood magic is strongest.’

  Steve’s mouth worked silently. ‘His own line?’ he repeated. ‘You mean his ma or his da?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you said–’

  ‘Of his line. His mother and father are not of his line. He is of theirs.’

  ‘That makes fuck-all sense. If he’s of their line and he’s their son, then someone of his line would have to be–’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You can’t mean Luke?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s eight months old!’ Steve exploded. ‘How’s he gonna kill Danny? Combat dummy? Knife-Me Elmo?’

  ‘Magic affects time. Think of time as water. If you know how, you can stem the flow of the river, store it up. Build a dam of time and release it in controlled bursts. Carman knows this.’

  Steve remembered the times he’d spent with Luke. Every time he’d looked at the gloriously fat little monster, with his googly eyes, elastic neck and the single terrifying tooth with which he took great delight in chomping down on Uncle Steve’s soft and yielding arm flesh, he couldn’t help but think, I wonder what mine would have looked like.

  He thought back to the day after Luke had gone missing. Danny had tried desperately to convince him that the little boy had even existed – had even punched Steve in the jaw in his frustration. Steve had been convinced his friend was going mad and, recollecting that now, the guilt was almost too much to bear. He was staggered at what they’d done to Danny. They’d taken everything from him. His baby. His girlfriend. His whole world.

  ‘I’ve got to help him, Larka,’ he said. ‘He’s my best friend.’

  She dipped her head in simple assent. ‘I understand. I will take you to him.’

  ‘Wait!’ Maggie said. ‘Steve, you can’t! Them things are everywhere! People–’

  ‘–are dying,’ he finished for her. ‘Yeah, I know. Don’t you think I want to pick up the phone? Call my ma and da? Call my sister? But what if I call and it’s too late, Maggie? What if they’re gone? You heard Larka. If Danny goes, this is the way it’s gonna stay. But if I can help him, there’s a chance this all goes away?’ and he looked to Larka. ‘Right?’

  Lie, he implored the she-wolf, little suspecting that across town Danny was trying to wrap the exact same comfort blanket around himself. For the love of God, even if it’s not true, just fucking lie to me. Tell me this might all reverse itself. That there’s a big cosmic ‘undo’ button that’ll make the world all right, make everything make sense again.

  ‘There’s a chance,’ Larka replied. She had the same look in her eyes as before, when she’d refused to elaborate on the method of Steve’s healing.

  ‘Besides,’ Steve said. ‘Have these cockheads forgot what country it is they’re trying to fuck about with? This isn’t Switzerland, this is Northern Ireland! We’ve got guns comin’ out of our holes!’

  ‘You mean the police?’ Maggie said.

  Steve looked surprised. ‘Fuck aye. Forgot about them,’ he admitted. ‘Surprised we haven’t heard shots already come to think of it, but we haven’t time to wait. I have to get to Danny.’

  ‘I’m coming with you.’


  ‘Maggie–’

  To his surprise she pushed him back against the wall. Larka emitted a low growl – whether out of protective concern or amusement, he wasn’t quite sure.

  ‘Don’t you fucking “Maggie” me, Steven Anderson,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘I’m coming with you. Not to give you a big head, but where do you think I’m gonna feel safer, out there with you and the Big Good Wolf or in here with Flan? What’s he gonna fight monsters off with? Achievement Points?’

  ‘The girl makes a valid point,’ Larka admitted readily. ‘The idiot boy would be an inadequate protector.’

  ‘Plus,’ Maggie added, looking away, ‘I don’t want anything to happen to Danny’s wee boy.’

  When she met his gaze, her face was carefully composed, with an expression that seemed to dare him to make anything more of what she’d just said.

  ‘Room for one more?’ he asked Larka instead.

  As they left Belgravia Avenue, the momentary shroud of invincibility fell away slightly. Shouts and shrieks, some human and some not, could still be heard across the city. Maggie drew closer to him. He helped her onto Larka’s back, showed her how to hang on, then swung himself up to sit in front of her.

  Maybe it was that the comforting shroud of fuzziness the painkillers had thrown over him had dissipated, maybe it was the fact that Maggie was with them, but Steve felt a sight more nervous about what unknowns lay ahead than he had done earlier.

  ‘Ready to take ’em all on?’ he asked, as much to steady himself as anything.

  Larka had cocked her head, listening to something on the night winds, something undetectable to human ears – or human minds, perhaps.

  ‘Maybe we won’t have to,’ she said, and leapt forward.

  BELFAST CITY CENTRE, NOW

  He’d been in here many times before, of course. He’d seen the place packed out a few times, on a Saturday afternoon or during some city centre event. Never quite to this extent, though. Hundreds of people had already been squeezed inside by the time he and Alice were shoved in to join them. Thankfully someone had smashed out the upper part of the windows in order to allow some air inside, otherwise oxygen would have already become an issue.