I heard my name called once more, a searing growl so inhuman it belonged in a fairy-tale forest, not in front of a row of abandoned office blocks in Liverpool. I called back to him, and our eyes met briefly – for one sweet second.
He might look like a monster. He might occasionally act like one. But the eyes were still his – distant discs of dark in the moonlight, though I knew they’d be shining, dark and violet as he struggled to reach me. He was still the man who loved me, in the only – flawed – way he knew how.
There was another rush of incoming Faidh, a swathe of black that pushed and shoved and chopped its way towards him. Dozens of them, racing over him, until finally … finally, he fell. His body disappeared beneath them, engulfed by darkness, and he was gone.
As I watched, I felt a stab of anguish and desperation sear through me, sharper than any broken fingers or vampire bites or any pain I’d ever experienced in my whole fruitless existence. He was going to die – and here I was, watching. Again. A helpless onlooker as his life seeped away.
I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. Even if it meant the end of me, the end of the world, the end of everything, I couldn’t do it. I heard the shrieks of horror go up from Connor and Kevin as they reached him too late, followed by the pack-hound howls of the vampires. By my side, I saw tears falling from Carmel’s eyes, her face washed pale in the moonlight as she quietly sobbed. With the High King gone, it would take only minutes for the rest to be slaughtered: without their centre, they’d be doomed.
I shook my head, clearing my eyes of limp strands of hair. No. I wouldn’t let this happen. The time for losing people was over. Gabriel was mine – whether I wanted him or not – in the same way that Carmel was mine, Luca was mine. All of them. They were mine, and I was not going to let Fintan take any of them.
The Morrigan had told me to stay out of it – but how could I? And where had doing what I was told ever got me? I’ve been a good little girl my whole life, and now people were dying for me.
I reached out while she wept, and grabbed the pocketknife from Carmel’s hand. I flicked it open, and stood as tall as I could on the railing, battered by the storm and drenched by the rain that had started to sleet down on us like ice.
‘I am the Goddess Mabe, Mother of the Mortals!’ I screamed as loud as I could. ‘And I offer myself to the world in sacrifice – my life for these!’
I don’t know where the words came from, and I certainly don’t know where the sound came from – my voice was amplified, like I was hooked up to a PA, booming and echoing over the din, over the battle screams, over the wind.
A brilliant white light suddenly shone over everything, spilling across bloody faces and shining swords and crawling, damaged bodies – like a floodlight switched on at a late-night football match, making them shield their eyes against its dazzling ferocity.
I looked down, and realised it was coming from me, that my whole body was wavering and flaring and shimmering with brightness.
I took a gulp, almost floored as a shocking flood of awareness flowed through me: I could feel it all. I could feel everything. The pain and the agony and the determined fury of the Faidh. The sadness and desperation of Gabriel’s men. The communal grief of the vampires, the ferrous tang of the blood still in their throats. I could even feel the confusion of the fish in the water, the tiny fluttering heartbeats of the woken gulls, the frantic scurrying of thousands of insects being crushed underfoot. The aloof fascination of a lone feral cat, watching from a safe distance on one of the office-block rooftops.
It was all there, inside me, so pure and clear I wanted to scream. I wanted it over with. I wanted my own head back.
The light shining from my body intensified, and I cried out: ‘This must cease! By the command of the Goddess, this must cease!’
My words thundered through the air, and I felt my power swoop down over the heads of them all – the Faidh, the vampires, all of them. They were mine to command, whether they liked it or not, I knew that now. I didn’t have to stand and watch. I didn’t have to be the onlooker. I was the cause of all of this destruction – and I could be the end of it.
I held my arms aloft, and the light swam and flurried around me, leaving my shadow cast huge over their confused faces. Suddenly, everything stopped. It was as though some almighty remote control in the sky had pressed the pause button. Everything – everyone – became still, as they felt the strength of my words and my power binding them. I’d found it accidentally, through fear and desperation, but I’d found it at last.
I saw swords paused mid-air, fists stopping mid-punch, and the vampires standing upright and huddled together. The undulating movement of the massed Faidh came to a halt, and they all turned as one to look at me.
Me. Lily McCain. Standing incandescent on a railing in the rain, at the edge of an ancient river, with a knife held to her breast.
Carmel was screaming at me to get down, to stop, to give her the fucking knife. She tried to pull me back down without pushing me over, scrambling around my legs and cursing at me. I kicked at her with my right Doc Marten, feeling the boot connect with the flesh of her shoulder, and pushed her away. She landed on her back, still yelling, still raging. I ignored her, and looked ahead.
The sounds of the battle had finally quieted, replaced with the gusting wind and a quiet hum of communal expectation as they all waited to see what I would do next. What the Goddess would command of them.
That, of course, was a mystery to me as well. But instinct had got me this far, and instinct was all I had.
That, and a very sharp knife.
The secret was in my blood. The damned blood of the Goddess that flew through my veins. The blood had saved Luca, and now, if I played it right, could save Gabriel too. And Kevin. And Carmel. And all of them, even the foot soldiers of the damned Faidh. All of them, in exchange for my blood.
I wasn’t thinking straight. I was operating purely on adrenaline, and what I felt to be right. I was scared of losing Gabriel. I was scared of what I’d turned Carmel into. And I was so tired – so very, very sick and tired – of all the death and violence and waste that was going on around me. And it was all because of me. Enough people had died in my name, and I would always carry that burden – but no more. Never again.
I took the knife, and dragged it, hard, across my chest. From the top of my right breast to above my heart, which was thudding so hard the whole world must have been able to hear it.
The blade cut easily through the thin cotton of my blouse, and almost as easily through my skin. I was so cold, so pumped up, so completely sure that this was the right thing to do that, at first, I felt no pain. I just looked down, and saw the blood. A fine line of brilliant red instantly appeared along the cut. At first it oozed and dripped, then it flowed and seeped, turning the white fabric of my top into a Rorschach test of scarlet.
Maybe it was seeing it, maybe it was real – but suddenly it started to hurt. Like a complete bastard. There was a lot of blood, more every moment I stared at it, spreading across my whole torso and creeping in a warm, viscous furrow towards the waistband of my jeans.
I was dimly aware of Carmel, still screaming; of Gabriel, roaring at me, calling me a stupid fool; of the sound of my own pulse banging louder than all of it, thundering through my brain like Satan’s steam train; of distant car alarms wailing, and the glass in the windows of the offices shattering and shedding and sprinkling to the floor.
Above it all, there was a whooping and beating and wrenching sound, hurting my ears, getting closer by the second.
I felt fuzzy, strange, cold and hot all at the same time. I was wobbling and wavering and felt the knife slip from my wet fingers, splashing down into the river.
I looked up and saw the Morrigan’s face inches from mine, drenched in rain and sweat and fury. She was sitting astride an enormous bird, its wings spanning two dozen feet or more, its cold, unblinking eye staring at me like a worm it was about to eat.
I smelled copper, and heard a m
echanical clank as the beast swooped its wings around me, flapping my hair up into a red-and-white cloud in its backdraft.
The Morrigan reached out, grabbed hold of my hands and tugged me up, throwing me across the bird’s almighty back. It was hard and cold and completely devoid of feathers, fur or anything other than rough, jarring metal, slick with rain.
‘Hold on!’ she shouted, and I felt a stomach-churning jolt as we were up and away. Swooping and clinking and banging and screeching as we climbed higher and higher. I gazed down and saw the faces of my friends staring up at me. I saw Gabriel reach out, one clawed hand grasping uselessly at empty air. I saw Luca howling, and Carmel screaming and waving as I disappeared off into the night sky, all of them getting smaller and smaller as we flew. I saw the river, flowing steel-grey, churning in the wind, carrying swords and shields and bloody, broken bodies away with it.
And I saw the Liver Buildings. Minus one bird.
We were so high, I thought I could reach the moon. I stretched up one hand to touch its yellow surface, wondering if it was made of cheese.
The effort was too much. My hand drooped back down by my side, and I drooped back out of consciousness.
Chapter Thirty-Four
I was naked, and lying on something soft, furry, and very, very warm. I squished around a bit, luxuriating in the way it felt against my bare skin, then rolled over on to my side.
I risked opening one eye, and came face to face with the extended jaw of a bear, face for ever frozen in its death howl. Yikes.
I sat up, a bit quicker than my body wanted me to, and had a brief dizzy-making head-rush. I glanced back down at the bear. It looked as startled as I was, poor thing.
The bearskins were thrown over some kind of wooden pallet, in the corner of a room that appeared as much cave as boudoir. The walls were hewn from rock, and traces of silica and crystal glinted in the light thrown from the huge open fire.
Broad tapestries were hanging from the stone walls, bearing scenes of torture: witch-burning and giants biting people’s heads off, along with dozens of other gruesome scenarios. Must be what people did for kicks before they got cable, I supposed. I shuddered, and tore my gaze away – they made Hieronymus Bosch look like a pastoral idyll. Burning braziers were suspended from the ceiling in black iron bowls, flickering shadows across the pictures and making them all look a bit too lively for my mental health.
Even though my flesh was bare, I felt warm – partly due to the fact that the room was a fire marshal’s worst nightmare, and partly due to the fact that I was sitting ass-naked on Winnie the Pooh and his pals. The room was vast, and smelled of smoke and coal and rich damp earth and the kinds of herbs you get bombarded with at Christmas markets.
I could see piles of books, the tops of them used as shelves for ornate rocks, intricate gadgets and miniature oil paintings, all propped upright and leaning against the walls. I was in his room. Its name was Teach Chormaic, my brain told me.
I opened my mouth to ask where I was, then realised two things: (a) I was alone, so it would be pointless, and (b) I already knew.
I was in Tara. I’d never even been to Ireland before, other than my jaunts to Dublin’s fair city and Fionnula’s cottage, but I somehow knew it. It felt familiar. Safe. Comforting – despite the bloodthirsty artwork. It was a place of refuge. A place of protection. A place of choice.
There was a bottle of Evian on the floor next to me, which looked completely out of place in the midst of the whole medieval-cellar-chic look, but I leaned down to grab it. I was so, so thirsty … which, I thought as I swigged greedily, might be down to the blood loss.
The blood loss incurred shortly after stabbing myself with a pocketknife, and shortly before being spirited away on the back of a Liver Bird by an ancient Celtic warrior goddess. Just another day at the office for Lily McCain.
Apart from the dehydration, my body felt fine – but I still couldn’t quite face looking down and inspecting the damage. It was like a hangover – purely self-inflicted – but not as much fun. With that thought in mind, I took another look at the side of the pallet. Sure enough, there was an unopened blister pack of paracetamol sitting there, along with an open can of still-fizzing Diet Coke. I smiled. Water, paracetamol, Diet Coke. Carmel had definitely been here. Which meant, you know, that she was alive and all.
I left the painkillers where they were. Admittedly, I hadn’t moved much yet, and hadn’t dared look at my chest for fear of swooning like a baby girl, but nothing was hurting enough to justify taking the tabs. The fact that my friend was not only in the land of the living, but well enough to resume usual post-booze-up business, was all the high I needed. And if Carmel was all right, the chances were that everyone else was as well.
I knew the Morrigan had been fine. Fine enough to pilot an eighteen-foot metal bird from Liverpool to County Meath, anyway. And I’d seen Gabriel as we’d flown overhead … He’d seemed a bit angry, now I cast my mind back. He may even have called me a few names. He was probably, in fact, storming around the building banging his head on the cave roofs and swelling like a big fat lip at this exact moment in time.
Huh. Interesting. I hadn’t wanted him to die – but now, I was in no rush to see him, either. I was kind of fed up of being shouted at by Mr Tall and Mighty. I really needed to find a way of stopping him from doing it. Maybe I should take some tips from the tapestries in the room, and cut out his tongue with a red-hot poker? That’d cramp his scolding style.
I stood up, stretched tall, lifting my arms in the air and testing my body. Nope. No searing pain. No tearing flesh. No sudden urge to squeal for the paramedics. I glanced downwards towards my boobs, but kept my eyes squinted half-shut, like I did when I was little and there was something scary on the telly. I could make out the hazy outline of a dark mark, just above my breasts. I prayed to God – my close personal friend – that whoever had stitched me up had done a better job of it than they had Carmel’s face.
It was too dark to see properly, so I walked over to one of the braziers, as yet unlit, to see if I could perform some magic trick and make it poof into life. Surely handy stuff like that should be included in my new skill set? I mean, did it all have to be doom and gloom and sticking knives in my tits? Couldn’t I at least get one break, and have fag-lighter fingers or something?
As it turned out, I didn’t need them, so I never got to find out. There was one of those old-fashioned long metal gas lighters resting on the edge of the bowl, the kind Nan used to use to light the oven before the days of automatic ignition. I clicked the button, and a blue flame shot out. The minute it touched the coals they blazed into magnificent orange life, and I jumped back to avoid getting my eyebrows singed. Possibly I said ‘eek’ as well.
As I stared at the fire, hypnotised by its flickering dance, I realised I wasn’t entirely alone after all. A huge dog appeared from the shadows and ambled towards me, all legs and muscle and haunches. Like a five-foot-tall lurcher. His coat – her coat, I corrected myself, after a surreptitious glance at the relevant body parts – was a smooth, sleek black, giving her inquisitive head the look of a curious seal. Her fur was shining and glinting in the firelight, the sparks dappling over the elegant lines of her long body, as though a thousand tiny jewels were trapped beneath her skin. Maybe it was a trick of the light. Maybe it was a magic dog.
She came closer, sniffing and snuffling and fixing me with huge, freakishly intelligent eyes, arctic blue ringed with gold. I held out my hand, and she took a gentle push at it with her wet nose. I had the strangest feeling that she was giving me time to get used to her, letting me become accustomed to her look and her scent, in the same way we all teach kids to safely approach new dogs. That she was the sentient being, and I was the easily spooked animal … well, that was fine by me, as long as she didn’t expect me to start sniffing her arse as well.
I leaned down, ran my fingers over her sparkling, smooth seal’s head, scratching behind her ears in a way that seemed to meet with her approval.
&n
bsp; ‘Hello, girl,’ I murmured, ‘aren’t you the beautiful one? What’s your name, then?’
‘What would you do if she answered?’ came a new voice from the corner of the room. A familiar voice. One that was, as usual, laughing at me. I shrieked, and ran for the cover of the bed, skidding my fine naked self so far across the shiny bearskins that I thudded against the eroded stone wall on the other side.
I ignored the sharp scrape of rock on my flesh, grabbed one of the coats, and threw it over me.
‘Jesus!’ I said, so loudly that the dog cocked her ears and looked at me in question. She closed the distance between us in two athletic strides, jumped straight up on to the pallet, and circled exactly three times before curling herself up in a tight ball, nose tucked into tail. Dogs on beds. Probably not in the Barbara Woodhouse training manual, but I kind of liked having her there. I’d learned to take my allies where I could find them.
‘Where are you, Luca?’ I shouted. ‘And how long have you been there?’
He emerged from the same dark corner of the room as the dog had, and strolled close enough that the light from the braziers flickered across his body. His completely, totally, day-he-was-born naked body.
‘Long enough,’ he replied, grinning so broadly I could see the tips of his fangs. Ugh. He’d been there long enough to see me tarting around starkers, obviously. And while that state of affairs didn’t seem to bother Mr Free and Easy over there, I was feeling decidedly squeamish about it. As well as decidedly … well, curious would probably be the right word.
I realise this may seem a strange confession for a grown woman, but I had, up until that point, never seen a real-life penis up close and personal in my entire life. Unless you counted that time I caught Jason McGee wanking over a poster of Mariah Carey on the backseat of the school bus – and I had looked away pretty damned fast on that occasion, as any sane person would.
Dark Vision Page 27
