Completely Folk'd Read online

  It was then that a huge fist made of pure darkness materialised from the shadow all around them and smashed him straight out of the twenty-fourth floor window.

  Danny’s air-swordplay wilted mid-stroke.

  Tony Morrigan, still standing nearest the window, fancied he saw from somewhere far, far below in the gloom, a small fountain of water erupt from the Lagan’s surface.

  ‘Never liked that little shit,’ Dub’s voice boomed from the shadows.

  No one spoke for a long moment – at least, no one except Dermot Scully, who had seemingly had enough excitement for several lifetimes and had taken to convulsing quietly and emitting small bub-bub noises.

  ‘Um …’ Danny whispered to his companions. ‘Ideas?’

  ‘Hand him his arse,’ Ellie began.

  ‘Sssh,’ Danny and his father spoke simultaneously.

  ‘Bub-bub,’ Dermot agreed.

  ‘You will all come with me. Carman will see you.’

  ‘I want my son,’ Danny said, gathering himself. Huge fists of darkness or not, he wasn’t going to be shaken.

  ‘You will see him,’ the voice responded, laced with amusement. ‘He is with Carman. You can both go to him, if you wish. We have no further desire to keep him against his will.’

  Ellie was suddenly in front of Danny, her hands on his shoulders. The glowing Sword cast her features in silver relief and made her look like some sort of glorious sculpture. There were tears in her eyes, of relief or disbelief he didn’t know.

  ‘Too good to be true,’ he said, softly enough for only her to hear.

  ‘And?’ was all she said. Looking at her then, he knew that, so long as the bait was her little boy, there was no trap that Ellie Quinn wasn’t prepared to face.

  He squeezed her arm with his free hand. She was right. At this point they didn’t have a choice – it had been too long, too much had happened. If this had been an eighties’ action movie, right now would be the montage scene where he and Ellie weaponed up for the final showdown.

  ‘Murdering bastard!’

  The cry came from somewhere to his left, followed by a soft, fleshy noise, and a sharp inhalation of breath.

  As if on slow castors, Danny’s eyes were dragged across the office. To his father, then to Dermot Scully. Dermot held Dother’s executive letter opener in his hand, now stained in red. Tony was sucking in great whooping breaths of air as he took an involuntary step backward to rest across the great ornate desk. He brought his right hand up to his left breast and when it came away, it did so plastered in blood.

  Tony didn’t say a word, didn’t have time to. With an almost apologetic look at his son, he sagged to the office floor.

  Tony Morrigan was dead.

  In the silence that descended upon the room, Dermot turned from his act of sudden homicide to face Danny and Ellie. He dropped the letter opener from his shaking hands as though it was scaldingly hot.

  ‘My father,’ Dermot croaked. ‘My father!’

  As the reality of Tony’s murder hit him, Danny’s scream of outrage and pain seemed to ignite the Sword in his hand. The glow it emitted increased in intensity, so far beyond blinding that Ellie could see her veins and arteries, red and blue, through her own skin.

  A mega-tsunami of light roiled out in waves, with Danny at its epicentre, When the front hit Dermot Scully, the man simply popped out of existence, as substantial as a soap bubble.

  As it passed over Ellie, she screamed – not in pain, but in empathy. She was feeling Danny’s very soul, pure and unfiltered, and right now it was howling in agony with the pain of watching his father die.

  The power being thrown out by the Sword amplified the wail of anguish, fusing a wall of sound to the blast of light. Every drop of Danny’s grief and shock and rage, enhanced by his synaesthesia, amplified through the Sword, was boiling out.

  Lircom Tower, until that moment shrouded in Dub’s darkness, went from a black silhouette to blinding silver beacon as the light from the Sword and the sound of Danny’s scream tumbled outward, bathing Belfast in sound and fury.

  The Sting

  BELFAST, 1970 AD

  ‘Ready for this, son?’

  Tony Morrigan, sixteen years old and frightened out of his wits, managed to nod. His father squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, even as the Triumph Herald spluttered to a halt at the appointed door. It was 3 a.m. and theirs was the only car on the street. Tony was amazed every single bedroom curtain in the street wasn’t twitching like crazy.

  ‘’Mon,’ his da said, and turned to open the driver’s side door.

  ‘Da, wait. Please. Are you sure about this?’ Tony asked. He was pale as a ghost.

  ‘I’m sure.’ James regarded his son keenly. ‘Son, you’ve been begging me to let you get more involved for the last couple of years. This is it. It’s time.’

  James reached inside his coat and produced something that glinted in the streetlight’s glow. It was a dagger, simple enough in design, but its edge, even in the dimly lit vehicle interior, looked sharp enough to have its own satirical column in a society magazine. Tony was transfixed by that razor-thin edge, that gleaming point.

  ‘Take it.’

  Numbly, he reached out and it was placed into his hand. He felt its weight. The reality of what it was, what it meant, what they were about to do, threatened to short out what was left of his reason. He felt as though he were simply a vessel to be steered.

  ‘Is …’ Tony swallowed as they walked to the front door. ‘Is he on his own in there?’

  ‘He’s waiting for us.’

  ‘But–’

  He got no further before the front door opened. A man stood in the doorway. He looked human. Tony had hoped he’d have pointed ears, or horns, or a big cardboard sign around his neck with I Eat Babies written on it or somesuch.

  Nothing like that. He was overweight, approaching middle-age and he looked tired – when he saw Tony and James on his doorstep, he didn’t react in fear or anger, but with a sense of weariness.

  ‘In you come,’ he said, and opened the door fully, stepping back to let them pass.

  ‘You heard him,’ James said, and made as if to step into the house. Tony tugged anxiously at his father’s sleeve, the dagger hidden inside his overcoat seeming to weigh a thousand tons and getting heavier.

  ‘What are you doing, Da? We can’t just walk in!’

  ‘Yes we can,’ his father said firmly, and brokering no further discussion on the subject, entered the house, nodding curtly to the occupant as he stepped inside. Tony followed, sticking as close to his father as he could, heart thudding in his chest like a jackhammer, mind racing, mouth dry, fingers white-knuckled around the dagger. Like a zombie on autopilot he found himself mirroring his father as he sat on an armchair in the living room. The middle-aged man sat on a kitchen chair he’d pulled in from the other room. Obviously the house only had two comfy chairs, and they had been reserved for guests. Or murderers.

  Murderers. MURDERERS!

  The word began to bounce off the walls of Tony’s brain like Steve McQueen’s rubber ball in The Great Escape. He felt like cupping his hands over his ears in an effort to drown it out, except of course that would mean letting go of the dagger inside his coat–

  MURDERER!

  ‘He new to all this?’ the man asked.

  ‘Learning the trade,’ James said.

  The man grunted. He steepled his fingers and regarded James. ‘So,’ he said eventually. ‘Let’s get it out in the open. Ask.’

  ‘You human?’

  ‘Not completely.’

  James shrugged. ‘That’ll do me.’

  ‘That’ll do? You’re not curious as to why I invited you into my home when I noticed you following me?’

  ‘No,’ James admitted. ‘I’ve heard of some of you – the infiltrators – who get bored with being stuck in this world and just want it to end. Go back home. So you seek us out.’

  ‘That’s what you think this is? Suicide by Morrigan?’


  ‘Isn’t it?’

  Genuine emotion entered the man’s voice for the first time since he’d invited them inside. ‘No it isn’t,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘I invited you here because I wanted the chance to talk to you.’

  ‘Talk? Ah right. About how humankind will one day fall back under your faerie heel?’ James guessed. ‘Spare me. I could act a part in that speech, mate.’

  ‘No! I’m not some fuckin’ wolf or wasp getting kicks off of eating wee girls!’

  ‘Da,’ Tony spoke up. ‘Maybe we should hear him out.’

  ‘Don’t make me regret bringing you, son,’ his father snapped.

  ‘Listen to him!’ the man urged.

  ‘All my son sees is your shell,’ James retorted. ‘I’ve seen what you do, those of you who can pass for human. You think it’s funny, don’t you? To pretend. Sometimes you even stretch it out for days, or weeks, or maybe even months. But never for good. Eventually, you get bored. My da took me along to get one of you in Tralee in ’51. Living as a postmaster for six months. First the pets went missing, then the kids. The things I saw inside that house,’ and to Tony’s amazement, his father’s voice wavered with emotion. ‘You can’t hide what you are.’

  The man’s face fell. ‘And that is?’ he asked, as if wanting to confirm the answer he already knew was coming.

  ‘Monsters.’

  With that, James reached into his coat and pulled out a dagger – the companion to the one he had given his son. Tony saw the determination on his father’s face and his stomach lurched, flopping as if kicked – he thought he would throw up then and there at the inevitability of what was about to occur.

  ‘Da?’

  Both men and Tony started at the unexpected voice. A boy of five or so stood at the bottom of the stairs, wearing a pair of tattered blue pyjamas that looked as if they’d been made from scrap wallpaper. From the corner of his eye Tony saw his father hide the blade back inside his coat. The movement was almost too fast to follow.

  ‘Da?’ the little boy said again, sleepily, as he registered the two strangers sitting in his living room. ‘Heard you talkin’, Da.’

  Tony hid his face behind his coat. He couldn’t meet that little boy’s eyes.

  ‘Back to bed, son. You’ve school in the morning. Don’t waken your big brother getting back in, there’s a good boy.’

  ‘Daddy, who–’

  ‘Dermot,’ the man said in a warning tone of voice so paternal, so familiar, that Tony felt tears begin to flood his cheeks, much to his horror. He watched through blurred vision as the little boy took a final doubtful look around and then padded softly back upstairs.

  ‘How long you been pretendin’ to be his da?’ James asked, furious.

  The man’s shoulders slumped. ‘It doesn’t matter what I say to you, does it?’ he said, all the life gone from his voice once more. ‘Six months.’

  He was lying. Tony knew it. Since they’d entered his house, all of the things the man had said had rung true, except this. He had not been pretending to be that little boy’s father for only six months. Bile rose in Tony’s stomach. They couldn’t do this! They were supposed to be the fuckin’ good guys!

  ‘Da, please!’ Tony tried again.

  ‘Don’t wanna hear it,’ came the response. ‘As for you. Don’t really think here is the best place, do you? Considering.’

  The man just sighed. ‘No. I suppose not. Considering.’

  He went and got his coat. He put on a pair of slippers, retrieved a packet of cigarettes and lit one as they exited the house. He locked the door, softly. He cast a look up at the upstairs bedroom window and to the curtain that moved there, ever so slightly.

  He got into the front passenger seat of the Herald and sat without a word as they drove through the deserted city. The first rays of dawn were beginning to break free of the bonds of night when they pulled over at the end of a deserted country lane, a few miles from the city boundaries.

  ‘Get out,’ James said. The man complied. ‘Walk to the ditch.’

  Tony wanted to scream. He wished the man would run, but instead he continued to do as he was told, going calmly to the ditch at the side of the road. Tony and his father kept pace with him.

  Before James could stop him, the man reached out and touched Tony on the chin, gently moving the boy’s face up to look at him. Whatever remained of Tony’s childhood evaporated in that touch, boiled away by the look in the man’s eyes.

  ‘Will you remember this?’ he asked. Tony could only nod, dumbly. The man smiled, and for the first time, Tony could see something dangerous lurking beneath the surface. ‘Good. Because I will.’

  James Morrigan’s arm moved, once, twice. There was a soft sigh and the hollow noise of a body hitting the earth.

  ‘Go back to the car,’ James said, discarding the dagger and picking up the spade they had brought along – a spade that had seen use many times. ‘Wait for me there. We’ll be home soon, son. You did good, I’m proud of you. I know how you feel now, but you should be proud.’

  Tony never fully forgave his father for that last lie.

  *

  Maria Scully sighed as the small presence at her hips tugged at her skirt for the fourteenth time this hour. The stew did not make itself, no matter what those under the age of ten seemed to think, and much as she was the envy of most of the women in the street for only having the two wains, she was willing to wager that the younger of the two at this precise moment was proving all by himself to be more trouble than any five of the street’s little terrors you’d care to name.

  ‘Dermot,’ she said warningly. ‘What have I told ye? Do you want nothing for your dinner, is that it? Do ye want to be sittin there with only a slice of bread and nothin in the bowl to dip it into?’

  ‘It was a car Mammy,’ Dermot insisted. ‘He went away in a big oul car so he did. Him an’ two fellas.’

  ‘I’m sure he did,’ she sighed. ‘And I’m sure the Lone Ranger was riding right alongside them on Trigger. Now go on. Get!’

  ‘Mammy s’not Trigger! It’s Silver!’ Dermot said, aghast.

  ‘Get!’

  Off he huffed, leaving his mother behind. He moved into the street, a little man on a mission. It was a Saturday afternoon and the place was one heaving mass of children. A game of football was moving up and down the street, winding its way around the little pockets of girls playing a series of complicated throw-and-catch games.

  Into this tableau of youth went little Dermot Scully, a big-brother seeking missile. ‘Our Michael! Our Michael!’

  Some of the girls took up the cry – he was still young enough to be considered adorable. ‘Michael Scully! Michael Scully! Your Dermot wants ye!’

  The football game was put on pause for the briefest of moments as a skinny, bony, dirty-kneed urchin strode towards his moppet-headed, runny-nosed little brother.

  ‘What’s it?’ Michael said impatiently. ‘We’re gettin’ beat eleven six!’

  ‘Our da still hasn’t come home,’ Dermot said.

  ‘Jesus, Dermot, not this again– ’

  This was all the leverage Dermot needed. ‘I’m tellin on ye!’ he said immediately. ‘You said a bad word, I’m tellin on ye!’

  He turned to go and felt himself tugged back by his big brother. There was not much brotherly affection being radiated toward him at that precise moment.

  ‘You’re not tellin’ nothin’, right?’

  ‘He was taken away,’ Dermot insisted. ‘By two bad guys. I knew they were bad guys cos I could tell our Da was ascared of them.’

  ‘Bad guys,’ Michael scoffed. ‘That’s all them Westerns you watch. An’ who’d wanna take our da away, like? He’s only our da.’

  ‘We’ll look for him. Me an’ you! If he’s in trouble, we’ll be able to help him!’

  Michael sighed, but he was beaten and Dermot knew it. ‘Right. If I help ye until dinner’s ready and our ma calls us, will you not say about me sayin’ …’

  ‘Aye, aye, aye,’ Dermot nod
ded vigorously. ‘Swear.’

  ‘’Mon,’ Michael said, and trotted off, shrugging his shoulders and gesturing towards Dermot in response to the questioning looks of his football mates. Dermot jogged to catch up with him, fairly bursting with excitement. It wasn’t often that his big brother allowed him to hang around with him, and they were off on a proper rescue mission as well!

  They turned the corner at the top of the street–

  Michael laughed. ‘Well,’ he said, already turning on his heel. ‘Easiest rescue mission ever. Over here, JP! On the head! On the head!’

  Thirty feet or so away, coming down from the main road, was their da.

  It was something of a ritual for Dermot to drift, seemingly by accident, to the entrance of the street around the time his da usually came home from work. Upon seeing his Daddy, the wee fella would completely lose his mind and charge towards him, arms and legs flailing, ready to launch himself into his arms.

  Today he didn’t move a muscle. Something kept him rooted to the spot until his da reached him – only then did he slowly lift his head so he could look at his father’s face.

  ‘There’s my wee man,’ his da said. His voice was slower than normal, as if it was an effort to speak. He was dirty. He smelt. There was soil on him.

  Dermot stared up at him, mouth frozen and unable to reply – a car with its front wheels accelerating and its back wheels reversing.

  His father crouched down on his haunches so that he was level with the boy. He smelt strongly of earth, which was strange, but there was another scent surrounding him, one Dermot couldn’t place at all. He looked at his father’s hands, which were blackened with soil, the fingers raw and torn, like sausage meat.

  ‘You’re hurt,’ Dermot said. ‘Was it them men, da?’

  His da smiled, weakly, reaching out with those ruined fingers and brushing Dermot’s cheek. The boy recoiled instinctively at the coldness of the touch.

  ‘Son I need to speak to your ma in the house for a wee while. Find Michael. Don’t come in ’til I say so.’

  Dermot should have been terrified, but the only thing radiating from him was confusion and sadness. ‘Da, you’re gonna be all right,’ he said.